TEAM SRI

Sean Jordan Manross is a cultural anthropologist, who serves as Vice President of Consensus Building Research at Strategy Research Institute (SRI).

Manross graduated from Harvard University (2024), with a Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) focusing on cultural anthropology; and holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in history from the University of London (2020). He specializes in pacific island cultures with an emphasis on overseas imperialism in governance.

Manross is noted for developing the Theory of Cultural Indigeneity, which is tailor-made to be the world’s most effective tool for consensus building in island governance, when deployed in concert with SRI’s proven Go-No Go ModelTM.

From 2017-2025, Manross was a professional chess governance official serving on the World Chess Federation’s (FIDE) Commission for the Disabled. At the national level, Manross was a Delegate of US Chess (2018-2021) and Vice Chairman of the US Chess Accessibility and Special Circumstances Committee (2018). Manross served as the President of the Southern California Chess Federation (2018-2021), modernizing the organization’s official publication (Rank & File); vastly expanding tournaments; and integrating a novel model for inclusion of disabled chess players.

Manross dedicated his youth to chess, becoming a decorated scholastic champion by winning the American Open Scholastic Championship three times and the Susan Polgar World Open for Boys and Girls twice. He is an Arena International Chess Master, a licensed FIDE Instructor, and has been noted as an internationally-accomplished tournament organizer and chess coach.

Since graduating from Harvard, Manross has become the world’s leading advocate for the developing online Chess Master titles that can be leveraged to enhance indigenous human rights through serving children on remote islands.

SRI is studying how connecting island children to online Chess Master titles serves as a gateway to engaging isolated populations in online education, leading to attainment of otherwise inaccessible college degrees. This ongoing project seeks to identify funding mechanisms for globalizing the internet infrastructure necessary for delivering education to isolated end users, as well as studying the longitudinal data on what promises to be a pioneering combination of best practices in consensus building research, indigenous human rights scholarship, and public funding mechanisms for alternative, internationally-oriented enterprises in the modern world. When combined with AI, the possibilities are promising and seemingly endless.

Manross’ thesis, Developing the Theory of Cultural Indigeneity, can be accessed on Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH)