Stephen Westland was awarded his BSc and PhD from the University of Leeds. In 1986 he joined Courtaulds Research as a Colour Physicist before returning to academia in 1990 to work at the University of Keele. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer in the Department of Communication and Neuroscience where he taught and researched colour measurement, human colour vision, computational imaging and image processing. In 1990 he was appointed as a Reader in Colour Imaging at the Colour Imaging Institute of the University of Derby. He was appointed as Professor of Colour Science and Technology in the School of Design at the University of Leeds in 2003 where he currently teaches and researches.

He has published more than 100 refereed papers in the areas of colour imaging, colour management, colour physics and colour design. He has been active in professional bodies that are concerned with colour. He is an active participant in conferences organised by the Society of Imaging Society and Technology (IS&T) and served on several organizational and technical committees. In 2008 he was awarded a Fellowship of the Society of Dyers and Colourists and the Davies Medal from the Royal Photographic Society for his research on digital colour imaging.