Zena Sharman
Zena
Sharman
Director, Strategy
Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research

Dr. Zena Sharman is the Director, Strategy at the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR), where she leads a team responsible for strategy, evaluation and impact analysis, funding program design and partnerships. She has over a decade’s experience in progressively senior leadership roles in the health research funding sector, including seven years as the assistant director of the Institute of Gender and Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In addition to her work at MSFHR, Zena is a writer, speaker and LGBTQ+ health advocate. Her third book, The Care We Dream Of: Liberatory and Transformative Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health, will be published by Arsenal Pulp Press in October 2021. Her 2016 book The Remedy: Queer and Trans Voices on Health and Health Care won a Lambda Literary Award for best anthology. Zena regularly speaks on LGBTQ+ health to audiences of health care providers, students and community members at universities and conferences across North America.