Sharon Lewin is an infectious diseases physician and basic scientist. She is the inaugural Director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne Laureate Professor of Medicine, The University of Melbourne, a consultant infectious diseases physician, Alfred Hospital and an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) investigator. She is also the inaugural director of the Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics. She completed her medical training at Monash University, Melbourne; her specialist infectious diseases specialist training at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne; her PhD in virology from Monash University, Melbourne and her post-doctoral fellowship at the Rockefeller University, New York.

Her laboratory focuses on understanding why HIV persists in people indefinitely, developing strategies to cure HIV infection and novel antiviral approaches for SARS-CoV2 and related respiratory pathogens. She is the immediate past President of the International AIDS Society (IAS), a global organisation representing people working in the field of HIV and over 17,000 members.

She was Melburnian of the Year in 2014 and was awarded the Peter Mills Medal from Research Australia in 2015. In 2019 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Clarivate high citation researcher. She is an elected member of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (2014) and the Australian Academy of Science (2024).