cook received magna cum laude bachelor's of science degree from princeton university in electrical engineering and computer science in 1982. in 1987 he graduated from yale university school of medicine with an m.d. degree in computer-aided medical diagnosis. he began his residency training in psychiatry at the anschutz medical campus of denver health medical center in 1988. a year later, he became a postdoctoral fellow at the bioelectric research center, columbia college of physicians & surgeons and two years later became a research fellow at the quantitative eeg laboratory of neuropsychiatric institute, a division of ucla. he completed his training in 1994 at the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences of ucla neuropsychiatric institute before joining the faculty and becoming abpn certified in psychiatry.