Ralph Bulmer was a social anthropologist, naturalist, and ethnobiologist noted for his work in Papua New Guinea, particularly with the Kalam. He born in Hereford, UK, and received his BA om anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 1953. He studied Sami culture in Sweden and Norway before pursuing his Ph.D. at Australian National University. His fieldwork for his Ph.D. was based in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, in particular among the Kyaka-Enga people in the Baiyer Valley. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1962. He then became a Lecturer, and later Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland.
In 1964, Bulmer began his work among the Kalam in Papua New Guinea. He took the unprecedented step of changing the role of his Kalam informants to that of collaborators and co-authors, involving them in the documentation of their culture. Ian Saem Majnep, a Kalam naturalist, was his primary collaborator and co-authored a number of publications with Bulmer. The Kalam project set out by Bulmer eventually included two anthropologists, two linguists,and more than twenty zoologists, botanists, and other scientific colleagues. He became the Foundation Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1968, serving until 1973. He then returned to the University of Auckland as Chair in Social Anthropology until 1988.