Initially planning on entering the family fashion and tailor business, he entered Kings College London in 1962, the first member of his family to attend university. Ozin graduated with a first-class honours degree in chemistry from Kings College London in 1965, and obtained his PhD in inorganic chemistry at Oriel College, Oxford in 1967 with Prof. Ian R. Beattie. He then was an Imperial Chemical Industries postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southampton from 1967-1969. In 1969, he began his independent career at the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1972, and full Professor in 1977.