Stephen has conducted clinical and translational research in the UK and Africa since 1993; his research in pulmonary disease in Malawi began in 1997. His initial research focus was on HIV-associated lung macrophage functional defects, specifically against pneumonia. He subsequently expanded his interest to include the effect of household air pollution on pulmonary defence including a landmark cook stove intervention trial published in Lancet. His current research focuses on defence against respiratory infection using a pneumococcal challenge model. This model was developed in Liverpool, transferred to Malawi and is now being used to explain the relative lack of herd immunity following pneumococcal conjugate vaccine implementation in Malawi. New studies focus on more resistant serotypes, populations at risk including people living with HIV, and new immunomodulatory agents as well as new vaccines. Future projects include TB human challenge studies to bring forward vaccine discovery in Malawi. As Director of the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome programme (2015-2022), Stephen led with a vision of “research to benefit health and training the next generation of researchers”. He was known for developing Research Groups and a training programme that nurtured trainees from postgraduate to Professor level. Prior to that, he developed the Pan African Thoracic Society research training programme, which has resulted in a network of respiratory research across Africa. During the COVID times in Malawi, he and others brought an oxygen plant to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, saving many lives at the time and in the future. Currently Stephen leads the CREATOR (Clinical Research Excellence and Training Open Resource) programme, a £10m project and building aiming to change the paradigm of clinical specialist and research training in Africa by combining these in-country in Malawi. Stephen is now Professor of Global Respiratory Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and Director of Experimental Medicine at the Infection Innovation Consortium in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (iiCON, https://www.infectioninnovation.com/ ). His work focuses on translational clinical research and capacity building to realise global health impact.