Dr Jean Kennedy

Southeast Asian and Pacific prehistory, management and domestication of tropical plants, ethnobotany, settlement pattern, ethnic diversity.

Education and early research in New Zealand and Polynesia (anthropology, University of Otago, BA 1966, MA(Hons) 1969). PhD (anthropology, University of Hawaii, 1977) on mainland southeast Asia, included abortive attempt to pursue funded fieldwork in Burma, and study of Lao, Burmese and Thai languages. Subsequent ANU-funded archaeological research focused on Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. Recent library- and internet-based research concerns tropical crops, especially bananas, and the problems of producing well-founded interdisciplinary syntheses across ever more complex and specialised research fields.

Career highlights

1966-69 Tutor, Department of Anthropology, University of Otago; 1977-82 Research Fellow, Prehistory, RSPacS, ANU; 1983-90 Senior Lecturer, History of Science & Technology/Archaeology, University of Papua New Guinea; 1997-present Visiting Fellow, ANH, ANU.