Dr. Stocks is an Associate Professor of Geosciences and the Director of the Institute of Science and the Environment at Mansfield University. Prior to joining the Mansfield faculty, he was an Assistant Professor of Geology at the University of North Carolina and Fairmont State University in West Virginia. Dr. Stocks is a proponent of undergraduate research initiatives, advising several ongoing student projects in dendrochronology, abandoned well location using geophysics, and sinkhole and cave mapping. He has worked in the geosciences for over twenty years in both academic and professional capacities including experience in geology, geomorphology, biogeography, and environmental science. He worked at various times as a geologist with the West Virginia GIS Technical Center, West Virginia Geological Survey, and the West Virginia Speleological Survey. His research focuses on karst geomorphology, or landforms produced by the dissolution of limestone, particularly the geohazards in those environments including sinkholes, landslides, and caves which are impacted by human development.

Since moving to Wellsboro in 2012, he has become a proponent of local primary education and the environmental scene, joining the Mill Cove Environmental Area Board of Directors and the Pine Creek Watershed Council. He has also secured grant funding for community and university initiatives including Single Stream Recycling on campus, Environmental Education Day at Mill Cove, and an annual summer Earth Camp for high school students.

Dr. Stocks earned his Ph.D. in from Kent State University where he focused on sinkhole collapse in the rapidly urbanizing panhandle of West Virginia. Outside of academia he spends time with family biking, hiking, geocaching, fossil hunting, climbing/rappelling, ridgewalking, and looking for new caves to explore.