PSA Secretariat
Based at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi.
The Secretariat liaises with national and international organizations, and carries out administrative tasks.
The Secretariat runs the day-to-day affairs of the Association, including facilitating various PSA Scientific Working Groups and research initiatives relevant to the organization’s mission.
PSA Executive Secretary
Burke Burnett (2004 – present)
Burke Burnett took over the running of the Pacific Science Association in March 2004. For over 15 years his focus was the interface between conservation policy, biological science, traditional communities. More recently he has become actively engaged in climate policy and climate science, and chaired the Science Committee of the Pacific Islands Climate Change Cooperative (PICCC), a U.S.-government funded entity that focuses on, and provides funding to, climate adaptation projects in the Pacific.
Burnett is also keenly interested in technology innovation and technology development and how those are critical to economic progress, social change, and sustainability. His particular interest in the role of public sector R&D in providing critical innovation pathways to developing solutions for Earth resource and ecosystem sustainability.
Burnett’s academic background is in policy, economics and anthropology, and has worked closely with scientists, NGOs, corporate and governmental organizations, and local communities in the Asia-Pacific since 1994. His field experience is primarily in East Asia and the Pacific with particular emphasis in eastern Indonesia and New Guinea. Burnett founded the Indo-Pacific Conservation Alliance (IPCA) in 1998 and remained as its Executive Director until 2012. From 1992-1995 he was a Research Collaborator in the Asian Ethnology Program in the Anthropology Department at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. From 1995-1998 he was Special Projects Coordinator [and] Japan Coordinator at Conservation International’s Asia-Pacific Program. He has lived in both Japan and Indonesia, and was based in Washington DC for 15 years. In addition to his native English, Burnett speaks Indonesian/Malaysian and Japanese languages.
Degrees: M.A., (International Economics), Johns Hopkins University – School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS); 1991. B.S., Southern Methodist University, 1987. You can reach him at burnett @ pacificscience (dot) org.
Past Executive Secretaries
Lu Eldredge (1989 – 2004)
Dr. Eldredge was PSA Executive Secretary from 1989 to 2004. He passed away in 2013.
Brenda Bishop (1948 – 1988)