My PhD thesis is on the protection of Indigenous medical knowledge with a particular emphasis on encouraging Indigenous directed models of health and economic benefit to Indigenous communities

My Masters Thesis (MTheol Hons, USYD) was an examination of the environmental crisis and the intrinsic value of nature from a Baha'i perspective.

Academically, my medium-term goals include encouraging a process of Indigenous owned pharmaceutical and herbal remedy companies as well as the establishment of an International Centre of Excellence in Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity directed by Indigenous peoples and their needs.

One of my long-term goals is to encourage and facilitate models of resource development for the community level of Indigenous peoples whose needs and goals are determined by Indigenous communities themselves. These include a broad range of areas such as Indigenous education, preservation of language, health, and social and economic development resources. I am also concerned to assist my own culture to find new ways to appreciate the sophistication and depth of Indigenous knowledge systems that are all too often caricatured in current education systems as 'primitive'. Because every culture has unique gifts, I believe that such appreciation will result in a corresponding maturation and deepening of my own western culture. Reconciliation and partnership between cultures can only occur if we begin by recognising the intrinsic value in each other.

I am engaged in a number of  grants, discussion papers, grant proposals and research projects to encourage these processes. I am in the process of adding them to this site so that those who are either already working on these issues or who are interested in collaborating can contact me. Such projects ultimately need to be owned by many people to become alive.

I have organised an international conference related to these themes,
" Indigenous Knowledge and Bioprospecting", being held at Macquarie University, April 21-24

(Last updated April 1, 2004)