Burton Levin is currently the SIT Investment Visiting Professor of Asian Policy at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he has been a driving force behind the establishment of a Chinese studies program. Before accepting his position at Carleton, Ambassador Levin established a regional center in Hong Kong that was the Asia Society’s first representative office outside the United States. He joined the Asia Society following a distinguished career with the U.S. Foreign Service, serving more than thirty-five years in the region, including assignments in Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan. From 1981 to 1986, he was U.S. consul general in Hong Kong, and from 1987 to 1990 he served as U.S. ambassador to Burma.

Ambassador Levin received his MA in International Affairs from Columbia University, was a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, and a visiting scholar at Harvard University.