About MIRAD members
Leon Weino
Leon Weino is a traditional local leader with the title "Soulikin Likihe". He has a wealth of knowledge and skills of local farming and also fishing. Leon is from Sokehs, Pohnpei. Currently, he is collaborating with MIRAD with its community projects on climate change adaptation and health. He also gives advice on traditional matters and their relationship with the modern world.
Professor Mac Marshall
In 1972 Mac Marshall received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Washington, based upon ethnographic field research on Namoluk Atoll in Chuuk State, FSM. He was on the Anthropology faculty at the University of Iowa from 1972 through 2006, after which he retired to northern California where he now resides. Over the course of his career he returned to Chuuk several times, conducting research on Weno and with Namoluk people resident there. He also ran a 2-year-long alcohol research project in Papua New Guinea from 1979-1981.
His topical specialties are medical anthropology, kinship and social organization, and gender studies. Mac is author or editor of 11 books, including Weekend Warriors: Alcohol in a Micronesian Culture, and Namoluk Beyond the Reef: The Transformation of a Micronesian Community. He also has published numerous journal articles and book chapters addressing Micronesian topics.
Myjolynne Kim
Myjolynne (Mymy) Kim is from Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia and is a Ph.D. scholar in Pacific History with the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. Her doctoral research “From Silent to Salient: Re-engaging local stories of Chuukese women” uses Chuukese local stories, cultural heritage, indigenous languages and epistemologies to incorporate women stories and voices in a gender-inclusive history of Chuuk. Her academic interests focused on using Pacific indigenous histories and epistemologies for the development of Pacific communities.
Dr. Josh Levy
Dr. Josh Levy is a Pacific historian and postdoctoral scholar at the University of South Florida. His research interests include American, German, and Japanese colonization in the Pacific, the reordering of indigenous food systems and ecologies under colonial rule, and the history of the Micronesian region.
Josh teaches courses in Pacific, global indigenous, and environmental history, and has taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Micronesia-FSM, Our Lady of Mercy High School, and PICS High School. He is also the author of Micronesian Government: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, a high school-level Micronesian civics textbook. Josh holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Illinois, a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard Divinity School, and a BA in religious studies from Amherst College.
Tendy Liwy
Tendy Liwy is from Sokehs, Pohnpei. He is an Associate Professor at the Career & Technical Education Center at College of Micronesia - FSM. He received his B.A. from College of Micronesia - FSM in 2002. His MA is in Curricular Studies from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2013. His research was part of the Project MACIMISE (Mathematics and Culture In Micronesia: Integrating Societal Experiences). The first project of its kind ever attempted amongst other achievements. He undertakes research projects with MIRAD and assist in community outreach programs.
Dr. Roannie Ng Shiu
Dr Roannie Ng Shiu is a human geographer whose work focuses on Pacific health, education and sport in Australasia and the Pacific region. She completed her PhD in Community Health with the University of Auckland in 2011. Her PhD focused on Pacific health workforce development by examining the health and education inequalities and inequities for Pacific communities in New Zealand.
Her work involves developing collaborative partnerships with Pasifika communities, universities in the Pacific region and development partners focused on the Pacific. Prior to coming to the ANU Roannie lectured at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland and was a research analyst for the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs in New Zealand. She currently serves on the NRL Pasifika Advisory Board.
Ioanis Jacob
Ioanis Iacob is a research assistant from Kitti, Pohnpei. He is a community educator in relation to local environmental conservation practices. He works for the Pohnpei Conservation Society after graduated from the College of Micronesia. He has been involved with the youth of Pohnpei since the inception of MIRAD. Mr. Iacob is currently engaged in MIRAD’s long term climate change integrated projects regarding adaptation based on indigenous historical practices. His future interest is to expand his skills and knowledge of practical environmental issues to assist the communities in Pohnpei and the FSM.
Professor Paul D'Arcy
After graduating in Pacific and African history from Otago University, Paul studied at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and worked as an archaeologist and for Television New Zealand, before completing his MA at Otago and PhD at Australian National University (ANU). He teachs courses in Pacific, environmental, and Asia Pacific history, and taught at Otago, Victoria University of Wellington and James Cook University in Queensland before joining ANU. His current research focuses on the problems and benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration, Asia Pacific visions of history and development issues, and the history of conflict and conflict resolution in the Asia Pacific region, especially conflicts over natural resources with particular reference to the Pacific Ocean.
Professor Delihna Ehmes
Kaselehlie maingko! Delihna Manuel Ehmes is from Pingelap, but she was born and raised in Sokehs Municipality on the capital island of Pohnpei. Her undergraduate and graduate degrees are in psychology. Her many years in teaching Micronesian history and culture continue to ignite her passion to connect with her island history as well as contemporary society.
She has been involved in research projects concerning the FSM and the Pacific region. She is part of several projects that connect her to many Pacific Scholars such as the project on Connecting Moana, Teaching Oceania ibook series, the Culturally Responsive Teaching tools in Micronesian Context, and Filming our journeys for COM-FSM.
Dr. Nicholas Halter
Dr. Nicholas Halter is a Lecturer in History at the University of the South Pacific. He currently teaches courses on Pacific history and historiography in the School of Social Sciences. His research interests focus on the history of Australia’s relationship with the Pacific Islands, travel writing, and the Micronesian region.
Nicholas was a volunteer at Xavier High School in Chuuk, FSM in 2006, and was awarded a PhD in Pacific History by the Australian National University nine years later. His thesis explored Australian travel writing about the Pacific Islands from c.1880-1941. He was a founding member of the Micronesian and Australian Friends Association (MAFA) at the ANU. He was also co-author of a PACE-Net funded study into indigenous youth responses to water and waste management in Kuchuwa, Chuuk in 2016.
Dr. Manuel Rauchholz
Dr. Manuel Rauchholz earned the PhD. from the University of Heidelberg, in cultural anthropology, and the M.Th. at Trinity International University. Dr. Rauchholz’s research and publications have been primarily in cultural anthropology in the study of kinship and exchange, migration, legal anthropology and on ethical topics such as human trafficking, sexual exploitation, human rights, economic development and the environment.
In 2011, he received the prestigious Frobenius Research Award for his dissertation, titled: “Towards an Understanding of Adoption, Person and Emotion: The Ideal Norm and Reality of Life amongst the Chuukese of Micronesia.” Since 2010, Dr. Rauchholz has developed and managed multiple research, educational and community development projects. Granting institutions include the US Department of State through the National District Attorney’s Association in Washington D.C., the University of Heidelberg, the EU in conjunction with the University of St. Andrews, and most recently the US Department of the Interior through the Chuuk State Department of Education, Federated States of Micronesia.
Dr. Rauchholz was raised and educated in Micronesia, the USA, Japan and in Germany.
Dr. Fabrizio Bozzato
Bionote: Fabrizio Bozzato is a political analyst focusing on Indo-Pacific dynamics. He earned his MAs in International Relations from the University of Milan (Italy) and the University of Tasmania (Australia) respectively, and received his PhD in Political Science from Tamkang University in Taipei. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Ocean Policy Research Institute of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo (Japan) and a Research Fellow at the CEMAS Center of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” (Italy). Dr. Bozzato has published and lectured on an eclectic range of themes: from Blue Economy policies in Insular Pacific to Cross-Strait security problematics. He is frequently asked to comment for international media, especially on China-Pacific Islands issues and Sino-Vatican dialectics. He serves as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (non-resident) of the Sovereign Order of Malta to the Republic of Nauru.
Dr. Ingrid Ahlgren
Dr. Ingrid Ahlgren is the Curator for Oceania at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (PMAE) at Harvard University, as well as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). She has worked in the Pacific Islands for over 10 years as a cultural and environmental anthropologist, and has spent another 6 years as a child in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
Prior to her doctorate, Ingrid worked for several years in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) as the staff anthropologist for the RMI Ministry of Internal Affairs in their Historic Preservation Office. She has collaborated on various projects with the RMI EPA, Ministry of Health, Alele National Museum, and various NGOs there.
Ingrid holds a Doctorate in Anthropology from The Australian National University, and a Master in Anthropology from Stanford University,
