Participation: 2024, 2025
Alfred Kik is a senior lecturer and a researcher at the University of Goroka in the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea. Kik has been based at the Biology Center within the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) since 2019, for his PhD studies. He also spent time as a visiting scholar at Columbia University and attended courses there in Anthropology in 2022. Prior to joining the CAS Biology Center, Kik had 10 years research experience. As project manager within the preeminent PNG research institute the New Guinea Binatang Research Center (Madang, PNG) for four years, Kik oversaw teams of other researchers and assistants to conduct a largescale survey of Indigenous language skills and ethnobiological knowledge, with over 7,000 secondary students participating. He established collaborations with both local and international researchers to conduct unprecedented studies on traditional knowledge on food and medicine, and acculturation in PNG. He has been running and assisting with other community-based studies in PNG since 2012. He is interested in studying the impacts of lifestyle changes on traditional diets and traditional biological knowledge systems in PNG. As a native Papua New Guinean, he will bring to this project his ethnobiological and anthropological knowledge and skills and field experiences specific to PNG settings.
[See details on his ORCID profile]