Brand received his Ph.D. in animal ecology from the University of Michigan. He is a retired biology professor and a former chair of the Department of Biology and Division of Science at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Presently Brand is a research associate of the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. He is also coauthor (with John R. Sheaffer) of Whatever Happened to Eden? (Tyndale).