The Shirley Brown Chair in Women's Mental Health Research is a partnership between Women's College Research Institute, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and the University of Toronto. It was created by a dynamic community-based fundraising campaign honouring a young lawyer who succumbed to severe depression. The chair links women's mental health research efforts at its three founding institutions and provides a focal point for advocacy on women's mental health issues. The chair helps bring research disciplines together to explore issues that address both the biological and social aspects of women's mental health creating networks that sustaining a holistic program of women's mental health research.

Dr. Sarah Romans served as the Shirley Brown Chair in Women's Mental Health from 2002-2007. With the completion of her five year term as chair, recruitment is now underway for a new chair.