Sharon Lynch is an independent film producer, journalist, editor, and researcher focusing on MENA and Libyan affairs. Originally from Massachusetts, she currently resides in New York City where she has lived since attending graduate school at Columbia University in 1984. She began her B. A. in Art History at Boston College, studied at the University of Hawai’i in Hilo and Manoa, and completed it in 1984 at Mills College in Oakland, California. While at Columbia she matriculated in a M.F.A. program in Arts Administration that allowed her to customize her studies with access to Columbia Law School and Graduate School of Business classes with a focus on non-profit and intellectual property law and marketing. In 2010 Lynch completed a B.F.A. in Graphic Design at SUNY’s FIT.

Concurrent with attending Columbia, she worked at The New Museum of Contemporary Art in special event management, fundraising, and membership development. In 1987, she joined non-profit contemporary art organization EXIT ART as Gallery Manager and Special Events Manager, overseeing gallery operations, public relations, and building a special events rental earned income program. In 1989, she transferred this expertise into the private sector and raised financing to open TribeCa Place, a high-end special events location available for corporate events, weddings, and film and photo shoots.

In addition to managing TriBeCa Place, she developed a film location management agency, representing properties for film and photography shoots. In 1991 she segued into film production, quickly working her way from production assistant to line producer on commercial television and music video productions. She oversaw more than 100 projects, producing for American, French, and British directors in New York, California, Nevada, Wisconsin, Florida, the Bahamas, and Canada.

In 2012 Lynch produced a political affairs televisions series filmed in Libya funded by the United States Agency for International Development. She developed the initial concept for the show and executed it with Libyan colleagues. “Libya Speaks” introduced Libyan television viewers to panel discussions that allowed comparative analysis of varying political points of view. The focus of the show was Libya’s democratic transition viewed in the context of the historic Libyan elections in the summer of 2012. Producing this show afforded Lynch unique access and exposure to a spectrum of Libyan communities, political activists, and thought leaders. Three months immersed in Libyan culture, including her first Ramadan, allowed Lynch to connect with many people she had come to know via social media and nurture a sensitivity to Libyan socio-cultural history and dynamics.

Currently, she keeps her finger on the pulse of Libya’s difficult democratic transition. She has researched and written about Libya’s elections, coordinated public opinion research projects on Libyan civil society, and edited articles for Libyan civil society leaders.