Alan Stein received his medical training at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Most of his postgraduate medical training was undertaken in Oxford and in 1988 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Lectureship in the University of Oxford. From 1991 to 1994 he held joint Senior Research Fellowships at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge and in 1995 was appointed Professor of Child & Adolescent Mental Health at the Royal Free and University College Medical School and the Tavistock Centre.

In 2001 he returned to Oxford to take up the Chair in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. He is also holds an Honorary Professorship in the School of Public Health, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa and is an Honorary Fellow of the Child, Youth, Family and Social Development Programme of the HSRC in South Africa. 

Alan brings his expertise in global health policy to the Blavatnik School, and will work with faculty, researchers, and students on questions of global health policy.