Dan Stein
Speaker
University of Cape Town | South Africa
Dan Joseph Stein is Professor and Chair of the Dept of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town, and Director of the South African MRC Unit on Risk & Resilience in Mental Disorders. Stein was the Director of UCT's early Brain and Behaviour Initiative, and is currently Scientific Director of UCT's later Neuroscience Institute. He has also been a Visiting Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the United States, and at Aarhus University in Denmark. He did his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Cape Town, and his doctorate (in the area of clinical neuroscience) at the University of Stellenbosch. He trained in psychiatry, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship (in the area of psychopharmacology) at Columbia University. His training also includes a doctorate in philosophy. He is interested in the psychobiology and management of the anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and related, and traumatic and stress disorders. He has also mentored work in other areas that are of particular relevance to South Africa and Africa, including neuroHIV/AIDS and substance use disorders. Stein's work ranges from basic neuroscience, through clinical investigations and trials, and on to epidemiological and public mental health research. He is enthusiastic about the possibility of clinical practice and scientific research that integrates theoretical concepts and empirical data across these different levels. Having worked for many years in South Africa, he is also enthusiastic about establishing integrative approaches to services, training, and research in the context of a low and-middle-income country. He chaired the DSM-5 and the ICD-11 workgroups on obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. Both classification systems elected to include a new chapter on these conditions. This decision aimed to improve detection and diagnosis of these commonly overlooked conditions. Stein has authored or edited over 40 volumes, including “Cognitive-Affective Neuroscience of Mood and Anxiety Disorders”, and “The Philosophy of Psychopharmacology: Smart Pills, Happy Pills, Pep Pills”. Other volumes include the "Textbook of Anxiety Disorders", and "Textbook of Mood Disorders".
