Following a BSc(Hon) in Medical Biochemistry at the University of Surrey Stephen went to complete a PhD at Imperial College, London where he studied the localization of opioid receptor subtypes within the brain. He then moved to the University of Melbourne funded by a Royal Society Fellowship to investigate opioid receptor action on the neurosecretory chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla. Continued funding from the NH&MRC supported two subsequent post-doctorial fellowship positions at the University of Newcastle, NSW where he expanded his interest in the receptor mediated signalling in these cells.
In 1998 he took a faculty position at the Dept of Anatomy at University of Otago where he became one of the founding members of the Centre for Neuroendocrinology.
