Dr. Gillian Marcelle Is UVI’s New Executive Director For RTPark

The University of the Virgin Islands Research and Technology Park (RTPark) Board of Directors has named Dr. Gillian Marcelle as its new executive director, after what officials say was an “extensive national search.” Dr. Marcelle’s contract with UVI began on Jan. 5.

“The UVI RT Park Board of Directors welcomes Dr. Gillian Marcelle. We look forward to her knowledge, commercial and global experience, and leadership of the Park as it continues to make contributions to the social and economic development in the U.S. Virgin Islands,” said Edward Thomas, chairman of the RTPark Board of Directors.

Dr. Gillian Marcelle

Dr. Marcelle is a senior executive, economic development policy advisor and scholar with more than 20 years of global experience. She trained as an economist at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and the Kiel Institute of World Economics, Germany. She also earned an MBA at George Washington University and read for her doctorate in Science and Technology Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit, a research institute based at Sussex University in the UK.

Prior to joining UVI, Dr. Marcelle served as the head of the Centre for Science Technology and Innovation Indicators, a specialist research center, which is a project of the South African Human Sciences Research Council. She also held an appointment as a visiting research scholar at the Tata Centre for Technology and Design, a project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative, in Cambridge, Mass., where she continues to have research affiliations, including with MIT’s Science, Technology Policy Program.

From 2008-2014, Dr. Marcelle was a tenured associate professor of Strategy and Innovation at the Wits Business School, and served as the assistant dean Postgraduate Affairs for the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits University, in Johannesburg, South Africa. In that role, she provided academic leadership for programs to develop research, management and policy-making capacity in science, technology and innovation, and led the design and development of an interdisciplinary masters of management in innovation.

Dr. Marcelle combines her academic achievements with commercial experience and a track-record in consulting, investment banking and leading project teams in large development agencies. Dr. Marcelle has also managed her own economic development advisory practice with clients including national governments, multilateral bodies, cities, companies and non-governmental organizations. Some of those include, World Bank/IFC, European Union/African, Caribbean, Pacific; United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs; and International Development Research Centre, among many others.

Dr. Marcelle’s finance background includes equity and capital markets experience with JP Morgan Chase, mergers and acquisitions, and development finance with the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group.

Dr. Marcelle also has considerable experience in global high-level advocacy, including serving as a member on the Board of the United Nations Information and Communications Technologies Task Force, at the invitation of the then-Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The UVI Board of Directors say Dr. Marcelle’s broad experience will aid the University and the RTPark in moving toward “realizing an ambitious agenda of making a contribution to social and economic development in the U.S. Virgin Islands.”