Dr Sean Turnell

Sean Turnell is a Senior Fellow in the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, specialising in macroeconomic policy, economic reform, and Myanmar. From 2016 to 2021, he served as senior economic adviser to Myanmar's democratic government, and was subsequently imprisoned for 650 days following the February 2021 military coup.

Dr Turnell is also a Professor of Economics at Macquarie University and has previously served as a Senior Economic Analyst at the Reserve Bank of Australia and as a policy adviser to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

He has written more than 100 scholarly articles on macroeconomic policymaking, economic reform, and the role of financial institutions in economic development, with a particular focus on Australia, Myanmar, and the Indo-Pacific. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, and The Australian, among others. In 2009, his book on Myanmar's monetary and financial history, Fiery Dragons, was published by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. In August 2024, his policy memoir Best Laid Plans was published in conjunction with Penguin Random House Australia.

Sean has held fellowships at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge, the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University, and the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.