Professor Sharon Friel is a world–renowned policy-focused health equity researcher. She is an ARC Laureate Fellow since 2021 and Director of Menzies Centre for Health Governance, Australian National University. Professor Friel was Head of the Scientific Secretariat (University College London) for the World Health Organisation Commission on Social Determinants of Health. She has published widely on the social and environmental determinants of health equity, with more than 200 scholarly outputs and an h-index of 64 (Google Scholar).

In 2014, Professor Friel was voted into the top 100 female global health leaders and in 2015 she was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia.