Shane's academic background is in theology and ethics. In 2010, he incurred a spinal cord injury that left him with incomplete quadriplegia. Drawing on the virtue ethics tradition and disability studies, Shane focused his research on happiness and flourishing with a disability. In 2013 he joined the Centre for Disability Research and Policy as honorary associate, working with the centre to write Crippled Grace: Disability, Virtue Ethics and the Good Life. He spent four years as a researcher and Policy Director at Australia’s Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. On its completion, he joined the University of Sydney as a faculty member of the School of Health Sciences.