John Blanchard studied as an undergraduate at the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University, where he completed a B.S. in Chemistry, magna cum laude, and a B.S. in Physics, magna cum laude, in 2010. His honors thesis "NMR Characterization of Dynamics in Triethylammonium-Based Protic Ionic Liquids" was directed by Prof. Jeffrey Yarger.
John completed his PhD (dissertation title: "Zero-to-Ultra-Low-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Via Optical Magnetometry") in 2014 under the direction of Prof. Alex Pines.
He was a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2012, and received the Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry Award for Young Scientists in 2013 for "Developments in Zero-Field NMR for Chemical Analysis." Upon completion of his dissertation, John was awarded a Helmholtz Postdoctoral Fellowship for his proposal "Applications of Chemistry to Physics Beyond the Standard Model: Hyperpolarized Nuclear Targets and an NMR-Based Dark Matter Search."