Kenneth E Read was born in Sydney on 29 December 1917. He graduated from the University of Sydney, with Second Class Honors, in 1939. During World War Two Read served in the Royal Australian Army; for some months in the Northern Territory, in and out of Alice Springs, and later in New Guinea. He returned to the University of Sydney after the War to work on his MA in Anthropology (First Class Honors) and completed his PhD in Anthropology at the University of London in 1948, having studied with Raymond Firth and SF Nadel. Read returned to Australia and was hired as Research Fellow by SF Nadel, Founding Chair of the Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. He became Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the Australian School of Pacific Administration in Sydney 1953-1956. In 1957 he moved to Seattle, Washington, first as Visiting Professor, followed by his appointment as Associate Professor 1958-61, and Professor 1961- c. 1985 in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington. Read died on 13 November1995 in Seattle, Washington, USA.

The Australian School of Pacific Administration was a tertiary institution established by the Australian Government to train administrators and school teachers to work in Papua New Guinea. It was formerly established by the Australian Army as the School of Civil Affairs in 1945. In March 1946, the School became a civil institution and renamed the Australian School of Pacific Administration which was located at Georges Heights, Mosman, NSW, and later to Middle Head. ASOPA operated under the Papua New Guinea Act in 1949 and continued to function as a responsibility of the Minister for External Territories till 1 December 1973 when it became the International Training Institute.