Dan Joseph Stein (17 September 1962 – 5 December 2025) was a world-renowned South African psychiatrist and neuroscientist who served as Professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town[2]. After returning to South Africa from New York, in 1994 he founded the South African Medical Research Center's Anxiety and Stress Disorders Unit, the first of its kind in the country, and initiated the first studies of brain magnetic resonance and neurogenetics in psychiatry[3]. He led the South African Study of Stress and Health (SASH), which provided the first nationally representative data on the incidence of mental disorders in Africa[3]. He founded the Brain and Behavior Initiative at the University of Cape Town, which laid the foundation for the first multidisciplinary neuroscience institute on the African continent[1]. During his career, he wrote or edited more than 50 books and more than 2,000 articles and chapters in professional journals[5]. He was the founding president of the African Collegiate College of Neuropsychopharmacology and received several international awards including the Maxwell Hamilton Award of the International Collegiate College of Neuropsychopharmacology[4].