Sean Gilbert

MIT China | Singapore | Australia | New Zealand

seang [at] mit.edu  -  (617) 253-5068

Sean Gilbert is the Managing Director of the MIT-China Program, MIT-Singapore Program, and the MIT-Australia & New Zealand Program. 

Sean is responsible for developing projects across this Asia Pacific region with MIT students, faculty, and institutional partners. Key programs include the Fung Scholars Program; the MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node-MISTI Collaboration, industry collaborations for students in Singapore and Taiwan, and a partnership on internships with the Australian Institute of Marine Science in the Great Barrier Reef.  Sean founded the Singapore (2002) and Australia & New Zealand (2013) programs and is working on expanding Southeast Asia initiatives. Sean also is the CIS Asia-Pacific regional lead and MISTI AI Impact Area lead.     

Prior to arriving at MIT in 2000, Sean co-founded EcoTrends International Co., Ltd in Taipei, importing environmental technologies and products for Taiwan construction sites (1997-2000); and worked for Taiwan-based Panvest Group's Offshore Investment Department on Hawaii hotel investments and automotive and data processing ventures in mainland China (1993-1997). He has also worked in New York as a reinsurance broker at Guy Carpenter & Company, placing European facultative and East Asian treaty risks with international reinsurance companies. 

Sean holds a Master of Arts in Chinese Studies and a Princeton-in-Asia Teaching Certificate from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies & Chinese, with a Minor in Southeast Asian Cultural Anthropology, from New York University. Born in Shrewsbury, England; early childhood in Indooroopilly, Queensland, Australia; grew up in Sea Cliff, New York.