Andrew Selee

Andrew Selee is President of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a global, nonpartisan public policy organization that seeks to advance immigration and integration approaches that are in the societal interest through evidence-based work. He also chairs MPI’s Europe’s Administrative Council and is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches courses on global migration.

Dr. Selee’s research focuses on migration globally, with a special emphasis on immigration policies in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He is the author and co-author of several books, including On the Move: Migration Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean (Stanford University Press, 2025); Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together (PublicAffairs, 2018); and What Should Think Tanks Do? A Strategic Guide to Policy Impact (Stanford University Press, 2013).

He has published opinion articles in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Dallas Morning News, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other publications, and writes an occasional column in the Mexican newspaper El Universal.

Prior to joining MPI in 2017, Dr. Selee spent 17 years at the Woodrow Wilson Center, where he founded its Mexico Institute and later served as the Center’s Vice President for Programs and Executive Vice President. He has also worked as staff in the U.S. Congress and on programs with migrant youth in Tijuana, Mexico.

He is on the editorial board of the journal Migration Studies, the advisory board for Ayuda, and the advisory board for the Immigration Initiative at Harvard University. He previously served on the Board of Directors of the YMCA of the USA.

Dr. Selee holds a PhD in policy studies from the University of Maryland; an MA in Latin American studies from the University of California, San Diego; a BA, Phi Beta Kappa, from Washington University in St. Louis; and a certificate in strategic perspectives on nonprofit management from Harvard Business School. He was an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.