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.  He launched a MISTI Global Teaching Labs initiative in Vietnam in January 2025. Sean also is the Leads for the Center for International Studies Asia regional program and the MISTI AI Impact Area.   

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.