Dr D. Kyle Latinis, Visiting Fellow at the NSC, currently researches the Historical Ecology of Southeast Asia—an approach which combines ethnographic, historic and archaeological data to examine long term human-environment trends, inclusive of internal and external socio-economic factors and resource exploitation. He will also assist with projects and field training in Mainland Southeast Asia, having over 20 years of experience in Cambodia.
Dr Latinis earned a PhD at the National University of Singapore, Department of Southeast Asian Studies (2008) and a PhD in Ecological Anthropology at the University of Hawaii, Department of Anthropology (1999). Recently, he was a Director and Senior Social Scientist with the US Department of Defense (2011–2014; including 18 months of applied research in Afghanistan), and Dean of Graduate Studies and Social Sciences at the University of Cambodia (2009–2011). Previous fieldwork and research throughout the 1990s and early 2000s focused on east Indonesia (Maluku, Papua Barat, Sulawesi) and proximate areas in the Pacific. He has also participated in several Singapore heritage projects since 1995 where he first worked with Dr John Miksic at the Fort Canning and Empress Place archaeological sites. His most recent (2014) research publication is: “The Social and Ecological Trajectory of Prehistoric Cambodian Earthworks” Asian Perspectives, 52(2):327–346.