Dean McKenzie received a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Psychology from Deakin University Waurn Ponds, and has recently been awarded a PhD, completed within the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash. His thesis was entitled 'Classification and regression trees (CART) in psychiatric screening, diagnosis and subgroup analysis'.

From 1987 to 1998 Dean was Professional Officer / Senior Professional Officer at the Monash Department of Psychological Medicine at Prince Henry's and Monash Medical Centre, where he retains strong collaborative links, and the Mental Health Research Institute in Parkville. From 1998-2000 he was Senior Statistician with the Victorian Transcultural Psychiatry Unit at St. Vincent's Hospital.

Dean joined the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health (MonCOEH) and the Unit of Biostatistics in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in July 2000, working primarily with the Gulf War Study.

Dean was awarded an NHMRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in December 2008 and is currently researching the development and type of depressive symptoms in adolescents and young adults, at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute / Centre for Adolescent Health, in Parkville, as well as continuing research at the Department, in areas such as the psychological health of Australian Gulf War Veterans, particularly in regard to depression.