Dr Sharon James is an experienced primary health care (PHC) nurse who completed her mixed methods Doctoral project exploring lifestyle risk factor communication at the University of Wollongong in 2020. For her candidature she was awarded an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and NTEU Joan Hardy Scholarship to explore lifestyle risk communication between nurses and consumers in general practice. Other research projects include PHC nurse experiences during COVID-19, and, bushfire recovery. Prior clinical experience in occupational health, employee well-being, and general practice has informed Dr James’ research interests in preventive health care, women's health, communication, chronic disease management, nursing roles in primary health care, as well as qualitative and mixed methods research.

In 2021, Dr James joined Monash as a Research Fellow and Interim Program Manager within SPHERE, an NHMRC funded Centre of Research Excellence for women’s sexual and reproductive care in primary care. This research involves an online community of practice supporting general practice nurses, general practitioners and community-based pharmacists in long acting and reversible contraception and medical termination of pregnancy. The primary objective for this research is to improve access to services for women by supporting multidisciplinary practice.