Born on Long Island, New York, Stearns began his classical training at the age of five with Mme. Valia Seiskaya at the Seiskaya Ballet. At 15, he competed at the Youth America Grand Prix, where he was awarded a full scholarship to The Royal Ballet School in London. While training there, he performed internationally in Madrid, Moscow, Milan, Düsseldorf, and London, and appeared in Kylie Minogue’s 2004 music video Chocolate. Upon graduating with honors, Stearns received the Dame Ruth Railton Award for excellence in dance for the second consecutive year.

Stearns joined American Ballet Theatre Studio Company in September 2004, entered the main Company as an apprentice in January 2005, and became a member of the corps de ballet in January 2006. He was promoted to Soloist in 2009 and to Principal Dancer in 2011.

His repertory with the Company includes The Man in AfterEffect, The Awakening Pas de Deux, Solor in La Bayadère, The Ballet Dancer in The Bright Stream, a featured role in Brief Fling, Her Prince Charming in Cinderella, Concerto pas de deux, Conrad in Le Corsaire, Daphnis in Daphnis and Chloe, Basilio and Espada in Don Quixote, Oberon in The Dream, a leading role in Études, Second Sailor in Fancy Free, Colas in La Fille mal gardée, Kaschei in Firebird, Baron in Gaîté Parisienne, Albrecht in Giselle, Astrologer in The Golden Cockerel, Grand Pas Classique, Her Lover in Jardin aux Lilas, Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre, Armand Duval in Lady of the Camellias, Let Me Sing Forevermore, Dr. John Brown in Like Water for Chocolate, Des Grieux in Manon, Beliaev in A Month in the Country, His Friend in The Moor’s Pavane, the Nutcracker Prince in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, Sergiy in On the Dnipro, Onegin in Onegin, Iago and a Carnival Dancer in Othello, Other Dances, Man From the House Opposite in Pillar of Fire, the pas de deux from Raymonda, Romeo and Paris in Romeo and Juliet, the Terrestrial in Shadowplay, Prince Désiré, the Celtic Prince, and a Fairy Knight in The Sleeping Beauty, Prince Désiré in Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty, Prince Siegfried and von Rothbart in Swan Lake, James in La Sylphide, the Poet in Les Sylphides, Some Assembly Required, Orion and Apollo in Sylvia, Prospero in The Tempest, Prince Coffee in Whipped Cream, Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale, Richard in Woolf Works, leading roles in Allegro Brillante, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Duo Concertant, Études, Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once, The Leaves Are Fading, Mozartiana, Monotones II, Rabbit and Rogue, Raymonda Divertissements, Symphony in C, Theme and Variations, Thirteen Diversions, and With a Chance of Rain, and featured roles in Citizen, Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes, Duets, In the Upper Room, Overgrown Path, and Petite Mort.

Stearns created Mithridates in Of Love and Rage, leading roles in AFTERITE, La Boutique, I Feel The Earth Move, Her Notes, Piano Concerto No. 1, Single Eye, A Time There Was, and ZigZag, and featured roles in From Here On Out, One of Three, and Private Light.

In 2009, Stearns was awarded the prestigious Erik Bruhn Prize for best male dancer.

Stearns’s legacy includes an expansive range of classical princes, dramatic protagonists, and contemporary creations, distinguished not only by technical excellence but by a deep commitment to storytelling and musicality.