Sharon Lewin is the inaugural director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital; Melbourne Laureate professor, the University of Melbourne; head, Department of Infectious Diseases, the University of Melbourne; consultant infectious diseases physician, Alfred Hospital and Royal Melbourne Hospital; and a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner fellow. The Doherty Institute has over 850 staff entirely focused on infection and immunity through research, education, and public health. The institute is recognized as the leading infectious diseases institute in Australia.

She is an infectious diseases physician and virologist. She completed her medical degree and PhD in virology at Monash University in 1996, her specialist infectious diseases training at Alfred and Royal Melbourne Hospitals in 1997, and her post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. David Ho at Rockefeller University, New York, in 1999. After returning to Australia, she established her laboratory at the University of Melbourne (1999–2003) and then moved to the Alfred Hospital and Monash University as professor/director of infectious diseases (2003–2014).

Her research focuses on understanding why HIV persists on treatment and developing clinical trials aimed at ultimately finding a cure for HIV infection, understanding the interactions of HIV with common co-infections, and more recently has established a new research program on novel treatments for COVID-19 using gene editing. She has published over 360 publications and given over 100 major invited talks on HIV cure. She is president elect of the International AIDS Society, the largest organization representing professionals working in HIV medicine with over 14,000 members. In 2014, she was named Melburnian of the Year, and in 2019, was named an officer of the Order of Australia, in recognition of her services to infectious diseases, specifically HIV. She is a Clarivate Web of Science high citation researcher, placing her in the top 1% globally amongst her peers.

She leads a large national network funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia called, “The Australian Partnership in Research for Infectious Disease Emergencies (APPRISE)”, which focuses on pandemic preparedness, and started in Australia in 2016. Scientists from the Doherty Institute were the first to isolate and share the SARS-CoV-2 virus outside of China and have a broad program of research focused on testing, treatments, and vaccines for COVID-19. She co-chairs the National COVID Health and Research Advisory Committee and over the last 24 months has provided the Victorian and federal government with scientific advice on all aspects of the COVID-19 response. She is the president of the Scientific Advisory Board to the ANRS-MIE, the principal funding body in France, which supports work in HIV, viral hepatitis, and emerging infectious diseases.

She is passionate about science communication and community engagement and has provided objective and rational insights and perspectives on both HIV and more recently, COVID-19, in the national and international media, civil society, and the business community.