Michael Ashkenazi has been a practicing anthropologist since graduating from Yale University (PhD 1983) with a wide and eclectic range of interests. He is currently a senior researcher and project leader at the Bonn International Center for Conversion, a German independent think-tank dealing in security, peace, and development. Before joining BICC he spent twenty years as a university lecturer, teaching under- and post-graduates in Japan, Israel, Canada, and the UK. He has written and co-edited several books. He has conducted and directed fieldwork in China, East Timor, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Israel, Japan, Liberia, Mali, and South Sudan.
Dr Ashkenazi has written extensively about subjects as diverse as Japanese food culture, religion and ritual, peace operations, small arms control, and SETI. He has been a member of the NASA Cultural Aspects of SETI multi-year workshop, and visiting researcher at NASA Ames SETI project. He has also conducted field research and published on human reactions to SETI.
