Sharon is Chair and Executive Director of Lived Experience Australia, a nationally awarded mental health consumer and carer advocacy organisation. Sharon brings her personal mental health lived experience and her 20 years as a family carer to several national representative roles including on the Board of Mental Health Australia, the National Mental Health Consumer Carer Forum, and the Australian Self-Care Alliance. Sharon is also a Professor at Flinders University and was previously Director of the Department of Psychiatry research unit there before her role as lead Mental Health Commissioner, SA in 2020-21. Prior to these roles, Sharon was a senior social worker in mental health services in SA for 12 years and worked in community disability and aged care for 10 years. Sharon continues to undertake a broad range of mental health research from a lived experience. She is particularly passionate about addressing physical health and mental health comorbidity, stigma and coercion in care, and exploring the person’s and their family’s experiences of seeking and receiving mental health support.