Rate My Professor Sharon Friel

Sharon Friel is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Professor of Health Equity in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University. She holds a PhD and an MSc. In her current roles, she directs the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse and the Australian Research Centre for Health Equity (ARCHE) at ANU. From 2014 to 2019, she served as Director of the School of Regulation and Global Governance. Between 2005 and 2008, she was Head of the Scientific Secretariat at University College London for the World Health Organization Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. Additionally, she holds a position as Principal Visiting Fellow at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health.

Professor Friel's research specializations encompass the political economy of health equity, governance of the social, commercial, and planetary determinants of health inequities, climate change and energy transitions, complexity, risk and resilience, global governance and regulatory institutions, private power and corporations, social determinants of health equity, global health, food systems, urbanisation, and climate change and health. She leads the ARC-funded Laureate project 'Governance for Planetary Health Equity,' which received $3,465,000 to develop governance frameworks addressing planetary and human systems for global health equity. Her scholarly impact is evidenced by over 22,430 citations and an h-index of 66, with 328 research outputs including 199 articles. Key publications include the book 'Climate Change and the People’s Health' (Oxford University Press, 2019), 'Global health equity and climate stabilisation: a common agenda' (The Lancet, 2008), and 'Using systems science to understand the determinants of inequities in healthy eating' (PLoS ONE, 2017). Among her honors are Fellowships in the Academy of Social Sciences Australia and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, as well as recognition in 2014 as one of the world’s most influential female leaders in global health by international peers.