Shandre Mugan Thangavelu is currently the Vice-President of Jeffrey Cheah Institute for Southeast Asia and Senior Fellow at Jeffrey Sachs Centre for Sustainable Development at Sunway University, Malaysia. He also holds a joint appointment as Regional Director (Southeast Asia) at the Centre for International Economic Studies, Institute of International Trade, University of Adelaide, Australia. He is also the Director of Asia Growth Research Centre at University of Adelaide. Thangavelu was also appointed into the Governing Board for the Work, Safety, Health Institute of Singapore. He is also a member of the Competition Commission Appeal Board in Singapore. Thangavelu was the Managing Editor of Asian Economic Journal in 2009 and has been serving as its Editor since 2018. He was also appointed as a Fellow at the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia in 2017.

Thangavelu is an active researcher on human capital development, technology transfer, foreign direct investment, trade, government infrastructure investment, productivity, and economic growth. He has written extensively on ASEAN integration, foreign direct investment (FDI), human capital development, technology transfer, and economic growth. He has published his research in major international journals. He has written several books on trade, investment, integration, and outsourcing in Asia. He has also worked on several international projects commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme, World Bank, ASEAN Secretariat, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and Asian Productivity Organization. Currently, he is working on human capital dynamics and FDI activities in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Thangavelu obtained his graduate degrees from Queen’s University in Canada.