William 'Bill' Standish was a both a frequent observer on politics and a leading political scientist of Papua New Guinea for over 45 years, His focus was Chimbu Province, where he had married and built his own house (in Mindima, near Kundiawa), and where his death in 2019 was marked by traditional mourning gathering known as a ‘haus krai.’

He worked as a lecturer in Comparative Government at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1971-1974, and continued his research based in PNG to 1977. He was awarded his PhD - supervised by John Ballard - at the Australian National University in 1991, on “Simbu Paths to Power: Political Change and Cultural Conformity in the Papua New Guinea Highlands.” In subsequent years he alternated between positions in PNG and Australia, working for LaTrobe, the Parliamentary Library, and ANU, where he remained in various capacities until 2014. Along the way, he worked with AusAID and as an Elections Analyst, both in Papua New Guinea, as well as alongside documentary filmmaker Thom Cookes in 2002-3. He also served as a parliamentary researcher, providing parliamentary reports on Melanesian politics, governance in PNG and the rising role of violence in its elections.

James (Jim) Specht was a PhD scholar in the Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University in 1965. He was part of an archaeological group which carried out fieldwork studying Lapita pottery in Watom Island, near Raboul, and in Talasea, on the mid-north coast of New Britain. He was awarded a Ph.D for his thesis: Prehistoric and modern pottery industries of Buka Island, T.P.N.G. (1969). Specht joined the Australian Museum in June 1971. From 1991, he was Head of the Division of Anthropology and was Chief Scientist from 1997-2000 before retiring in November 2000.

Mervyn Meggitt served in the Royal Australian Navy during World War II before enrolling at the University of Sydney, where he graduated with Double Honours. Meggitt's first fieldwork was with the Walbiri in Central Australia. He published Desert People based on his Walbiri study. His next field work location was in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, studying the Enga. Between 1955 and 1961 he spent 21 months in Papua New Guinea. During this time he was also a lecturer at the University of Sydney. Between 1962 and 1965 he took up a fellowship at Manchester University, followed by visiting professorships in the USA. In 1965 he returned to the United States as a professor at the University of Michigan. In the 1967 he moved to a position at Queens College, City University of New York, where he remained until his retirement as Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 1992. He made his last visit to the Highlands in 1982.

William (Bill) Adrian McGrath completed an Engineering, Surveying Cadetship in the Public Works Department of Western Australia from 1950-1953, and joined the Administration of the Territory of Papua New Guinea as a Cadet Patrol Officer in April 1953. In 1955 he was promoted to Patrol Officer at Erave Patrol Post in the Southern Highland Province. In 1958 McGrath attended a Long Course at ASOPA and in 1959 was appointed as Patrol Officer [Lands] at Konedobu Headquarters. He undertook land buying assignments for the PNG Administration in the Central, New Britain and Northern Districts. From 1961-1965 McGrath worked in the Lands Department before becoming Director of Lands and Surveys of the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands at Saipan. From 1971-1975 McGrath was the Land Department Manager in C Brewer and Co. Ltd in Hawaii. From 1975 to 1979 he was appointed the founding General Manager of the Native Land Development Corporation. From 1980 to 1984 McGrath worked as a Land Consultant to the then New Hebrides Condominium Government, continuing in the position after Vanuatu gained its independence. From 1984 to 1997 he was Land Supervisor with Chevron Niugini as the operator of the PNG Kutubu Petroleum Development Project. In 1984 Bill McGrath set up the Pacific Book House as a mail-order bookshop, which he ran intermittently until being able to devote more time to the business in 2010.

James Patrick Sinclair was born in Dubbo NSW on 18 April 1928. He attended Dubbo High School, Sydney Grammar School and the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) in Sydney. In November 1947, he Joined the Department of District Services and Native Affairs, Administration of Papua New Guinea. After attending an orientation course at the Australian School of Pacific Administration he proceeded to Papua New Guinea in August 1948 as a cadet patrol officer. He also attended the No 4 Long Course at ASOPA in 1953 - 1954. From 1948 to 1975 he served successively on many stations as a patrol officer, assistant district officer, deputy district commissioner and district commissioner. He was the last Australian District Commissioner of the Eastern Highlands District, 1969-1974.

During his service James Sinclair conducted extensive exploratory and pacification patrols in Morobe and Southern Highlands Districts. He opened the station of Koroba in 1955, Lake Kopiago base camp in 1956 and explored the then Uncontrolled area to the Strickland River until late 1958. He married Janece Marie McGrath in January 1959 and had three children. He subsequently served in charge of the Wau, Finschhafen and Lae Sub-Districts before moving to the Eastern Highlands in 1968.

James Sinclair retired in August 1975 following Independence in Papua New Guinea. He returned to his previous hobby of writing on Papua New Guinea history, which became a full-time occupation and he has since published more than 30 books. His first book, ‘Behind the Ranges’¸ was published in 1966 and told of his exploratory work in Morobe and the Southern Highlands. In 2013, several publications edited by James Sinclair were ready for publication, including publications about Peter Fox, A Lloyd Hurrell and John Middleton. Jim died on 9 October 2017.

Honours: James Sinclair has been awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1992; the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the Australian National University in 1999; and a Companion, Order of the Star of Melanesia (PNG) in 2008.

Edward Adley Owen was employed by CSR at the Labasa Mill in Fiji circa 1909-1910. He died in Sydney on 17 May 1929, aged 41 years.

Born in Arkansas, USA, David Hyndman studied at the University of Colorado, and completed his MA at the University of Idaho. In 1972, he moved to Australia to pursue his PhD at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Queensland. His doctoral thesis on the Wopkaimin people of the Ok Tedi area of Papua New Guinea was completed in 1979.
He studied subsistence, ethnotaxonomy, ethnobotany, mining and Indigenous peoples, and biodiversity conservation. He completed several periods of fieldwork in the region from 1973 through the 1980s. He spent a good deal of research on the effects of the Ok Tedi mine on the surrounding area, both socially and environmentally.
From 1989-1992, Hyndman worked with the T'boli people of Mindanao in the southern Phillippines. Hyndman was a lecturer and later a reader at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Queensland, from which he retired in 2001, moving to the Canberra region.

Parke was born in Moreton, Dorset in 1925. In 1951 Parke was posted to the Western District of Fiji. He would continue to work in the country, in various locations and posts, over the next 20 years. He was also a Trustee of the Fiji Museum and advised the museum on archaeological matters. After Fijian independence, Parke relocated to Canberra, where he pursued his MA and later PhD at the Australian National University based on his many years experience in Fiji.

Ole Christensen completed his BA in 1970 and his MA in 1972, at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Calgary. After field work in South America, he came to the ANU as a PhD scholar in 1972, and worked for the Department of Prehistory's project at Kuk in the upper Wahgi valley, led by Dr Jack Golson. Christensen was involved in the study of the agricultural history of the area, especially scrutinizing resource utilization near the site of the Department's excavations at Kuk. Ole Christensen died, aged 29, in a car accident on 16 December 1974.