S. Epatha Merkerson

Sharon Epatha Merkerson was born on November 28, 1952, in Saginaw, Michigan, the youngest of five children raised by her mother Ann, who worked for the post office. She grew up in Detroit, where she attended Cooley High School, graduating in 1970. Merkerson earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre from Wayne State University in 1976, then relocated to New York City in 1978, where she pursued a Master of Fine Arts from New York University on a part-time basis. Wayne State University later recognized her with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in May 2009.

Merkerson's stage career encompasses Broadway appearances spanning from 1980 to 2008. Her Broadway credits include the revue Tintypes, August Wilson's The Piano Lesson, and William Inge's Come Back, Little Sheba. Her portrayal of Berniece in The Piano Lesson earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1990, along with a Drama Desk Award nomination for Best Actress in a Lead Role and a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Best Actress in a Non-Resident Play. She had first taken on the lead role in the one-woman play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill before her Wilson credit. Come Back, Little Sheba, in which she played Lola Delaney, originated as a Los Angeles stage production in 2007 before opening on Broadway in January 2008, earning Merkerson her second Tony nomination, this time for Best Actress in a Play. Her off-Broadway work brought her two Obie Awards, for performances in I'm Not Stupid and Birdie Blue, as well as a Helen Hayes Award for The Old Settler and a Lucille Lortel nomination for Suzan-Lori Parks's Fucking A.

On television, Merkerson made her debut as Reba the Mail Lady on Pee-wee's Playhouse and also appeared on The Cosby Show. Her first appearance on the NBC police procedural Law & Order came in a Season 1 episode, "Mushrooms," in which she played the grief-stricken mother of a child who is accidentally shot. That performance led producers to cast her as the detective squad chief beginning in the series' fourth season, replacing Dann Florek. She portrayed Lieutenant Anita Van Buren for 17 consecutive seasons, appearing in 388 episodes between 1993 and 2010, a run longer than that of any other actor associated with the program. Her final appearance on the series, which aired May 24, 2010, was also the show's last episode.

Her screen work includes the films Jacob's Ladder, Loose Cannons, She's Gotta Have It, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Navy SEALs. In 2006, her performance in the HBO film Lackawanna Blues brought her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries. She appeared in Steven Spielberg's 2012 film Lincoln as Lydia Hamilton Smith, housekeeper to Tommy Lee Jones's character, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens. Beginning in November 2015, Merkerson joined the cast of the NBC medical drama Chicago Med as Sharon Goodwin, Chief of Patient and Medical Services, a series created by Law & Order producer Dick Wolf alongside Matt Olmstead, Derek Haas, and Michael Brandt. She has also appeared in crossover episodes of Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D.

In 2012, Merkerson became the host of Find Our Missing, a reality-reenactment series on TV One focusing on missing people of color. That same year she appeared in the Primary Stages production of While I Yet Live, written by Billy Porter, in 2014. She became a spokesperson for Merck America's Diabetes Challenge in 2014, aimed at raising Type 2 diabetes awareness among African Americans. On a February 2019 episode of Henry Louis Gates's Finding Your Roots, Merkerson revealed she is a descendant of Isaac Hawkins and eight others among the 272 enslaved people sold in the 1838 Jesuit slave sale, the proceeds of which were used to retire debts of Georgetown College, now Georgetown University. Merkerson has received four NAACP Image Awards across her career, with additional honorary degrees conferred by the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Montclair State University, and the University of Pittsburgh.