Alban completed his undergraduate education at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and worked as a community organizer in Detroit, Michigan for a year. Afterwards, he moved to the Uptown neighborhood in Chicago, and lived in a community of former Jesuit Volunteers and other social service activists and leaders.

For the next several years, Alban learned a great deal from dedicated people working to address issues of homelessness, chronic mental illness, housing, community banking, education of high-risk youth who had dropped out of school, as well as the management of non-profit agencies. He then decided to go graduate school to learn more about his interest in supporting youth and families in addressing the many high-risk situations.

He completed his Master’s degree in clinical psychology from DePaul University in 1990, and then his Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 2003. After finishing his master’s, Alban attended a one-year post-graduate internship at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Institute for Juvenile Research, completing a specialized program in family therapy. For the next few years, he was a therapist for mostly DCFS-involved youth and families who were facing issues of abuse and neglect. In addition to this, he became very involved in the understanding of the child welfare system, especially around the implementation of services in foster care, group homes, psychiatric hospitalization, independent living programs, and school settings.

For over 20 years, Alban served in the role of a supervisor, involved in the training and development of other supervisors, therapists, case managers, youth care workers, and mentors.

He has worked at Mercy since 2010, and for the first 10 years was a program manager responsible for the care of high school boys with a range of moderate to severe emotional and behavioral problems. He then served as Mercy Home’s clinical director before being named Vice President of Youth Programs.