Stephen is Professor of Economics at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy and the Director of the Development Policy Centre. He served as Director of the International and Development Economics program of the Crawford School from 2009 to 2014.

Prior to joining the Crawford School in 2009, Stephen was Chief Economist at the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). He worked from 1994 to 2005 at the World Bank, first in Washington and then in Delhi, where he was Lead Economist for India. In 2008, he worked on the Garnaut Review on Climate Change, where he managed the Review’s international work stream.

Stephen is Chair of Femili PNG, an NGO that supports survivors of family and sexual violence in Papua New Guinea.

Stephen served as a Board Member for CARE Australia, and Chair of the Program and Operations Committee from 2012 to 2019. He has previously served on the Board of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, and on the Advisory Council of the Asian Development Bank Institute.

In 2005, while working for AusAID, Stephen was a member of the three-person Core Group whose report formed the basis for the 2006 Australian Aid White Paper. In 2010-11, Stephen was a member of the five-person panel who wrote the Independent Review of [Australian] Aid Effectiveness. In 2016, he served as a member of the Australia-Pacific Technical College Design Reference Group.