Alain Gervaix did all his academic education in Geneva, including his post-graduate training as an FMH specialist in paediatrics and infectious diseases. After a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Diego, he was appointed staff physician at the HUG in 1997. In 2005, he was appointed head of the Division of Paediatric Reception and Emergency, then associate professor at the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine in 2006. As a teacher, he was responsible for paediatric AMC. Alain Gervaix conducted research projects on serum markers of bacterial infections and respiratory tract infections in children, in collaboration with teams in Switzerland, Europe and Canada, as well as in Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He has been a full professor in the Department of Paediatrics, Gynaecology and Obstetrics since 2012 and head of the Department of Women, Children and Adolescent at the HUG since 2017. He was also vice-dean in charge of humanitarian and international medicine from 2011 to 2017. He is appointed Emeritus Professor in October 2025.