He is currently the director of the University of Copenhagen's Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics.
[2] He received a Bachelor of Arts in Biological Sciences at Oriel College, Oxford University in 2000, and Doctor of Philosophy from the Zoology Dept and at New College, Oxford University in 2004 under Alan Cooper.
Subsequently, he was a post-doctoral fellow with Michael Worobey at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, at the University of Arizona, where he undertook genetic analyses on samples containing some of the earliest recorded HIV-1 infected tissues.
As of 2022[update], Gilbert is an associate editor of the journals Evolution, Medicine and Public Health,[5] and Methods in Ecology and Evolution,[6] and a former editor of the journals PLOS One, Environmental DNA, Open Quaternary and Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
[7] and an elected member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.