Alana Haynes Stein grew up in rural Tennessee and earned an interdisciplinary Bachelor's Degree focused on food security from the University of Tennessee. She then moved to California to complete her Master's Degree and Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California Davis. Dr. Haynes Stein is interested in understanding the many inequalities present in today's society, with a particular emphasis on food. Dr. Haynes Stein is also interested in how social science research can be used to address social problems, particularly in creating food justice. Much of her research has focused on nonprofit organizations that address hunger. She has also conducted research related to the environment and graduate students' experiences doing publicly engaged scholarship. Dr. Haynes Stein uses a mixed methods approach of qualitative and quantitative methods in her work. She also teaches courses on statistics, GIS mapping, and food from a sociological perspective.

Curriculum Vitae