Senior Executive Staff

Cheah See Siang

Cheah See Siang was appointed in December 2019 as Director of Research of PNGOPRA and holds the position of Head of NBPOL Research. His key roles include but are not limited to the coordination of research efforts for the oil palm industry in PNG, such as developing advanced agricultural practices and developing better planting materials. He is currently positioned at Dami Research Station in West New Britain Province in PNG, where he operates and resides. He began his career with Sime Darby Plantation Berhad in Malaysia as a junior agronomist, and since then, he advanced his career to his current position. He has 25 years of working experience in oil palm and holds a PhD in Agronomy.

 

Jenny Ramoi

Ms Ramoi is the current Head of Finance and Administration.  She joined the Association in August 2015.  With 23 years of experience in Finance and Administration, she leads a small team of dedicated staff.  She is responsible for coordinating and managing the Association’s accounting, finance, human resource, admin and operational function.  In addition, she is also responsible for the management and accounting of foreign aid projects and other external funding projects.  She began her career as a Research Officer with the Bank of PNG (BPNG), the Institution that sponsored her in her last year of studies at the University.  From there, she went on to manage the Accounts of a joint-funded project between GoPNG & Exim Bank of Korea in Wewak for 3 years before spending the next 6 years working for Kokonas Indastri Koporesen (KIK) and it is subsidiary PNG Coconut Commodities as their Accounts Manager.  She also worked with a USA Based NGO, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), as a Finance Manager, PNG-Solomon Island Program. Her last job before joining PNGOPRA was with the Industrial Centres Development Corporation (ICDC), a PNG National Government Agency under the Ministry of Trade Commerce & Industry, responsible for Implementing Government Projects. She was employed as Project Accountant for 5 years.
She holds a Master of Commerce (Applied Finance) from the University of Queensland, Australia and a Bachelor of Commerce (Accountancy) with Merit and a Diploma in Commerce, both from PNG University of Technology. She is a Certified Practising Accountant (CPA). She was admitted to membership and granted the status of CPA in 2004.

 

Dr Murom Banabas

Dr Murom Banabas is the Head of Agronomy and has been since 2011. He leads a dedicated team that manages the agronomy program across all central oil palm growing areas in PNG. In the past, he has also managed the agronomy component of a smallholder research program that involved training extension officers and smallholder farmers in best management practices. He has also managed and participated in collaborative soil and nutrition studies with outside organisations. In addition to oil palm agronomy, he also managed a food security study that looked at intercropping food crops with oil palm.  After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from PNG University of Technology in 1990, Murom joined NGIP cocoa plantations in Rabaul as a trainee manager in 1991 but left and joined PNGOPRA as an assistant agronomist in 1992 and has been with the organisation since. He is married with four children, three of which are living their own lives now. He spent most of his working life in Popondetta and was transferred to Dami in 2013.

While with PNGOPRA, from 1995 to 1997, he did his Masters in Soils Science at Massey University in NZ, looking at the Phosphorus nutrition of oil palm in PNG volcanic soils. Then in 2003-2007, he did his PhD study looking into the fate of nitrogen fertilisers in oil palm systems in PNG soils, again at Massey University in New Zealand.

 

Dr Emad Jaber

Dr Jaber has a multi-national academic life; he worked for over 18 years in research and development with several universities, developmental NGOs and governmental bodies in the Middle East, Greece, Germany and Finland. During Emad’s most recent tenure at The University of Helsinki – Finland, he actively mentored young researchers and researched molecular genetics of plant-pathogen interactions at the Forest Pathology Research Lab.  He holds a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.)  in Agriculture Engineering from the Department of Horticulture. He dates palm from Basrah – Iraq,  a Postgraduate Diploma in Horticultural Genetics & Biotechnology from the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICh) – Greece and a Master of Science degree in Plant Molecular Pathology and Breeding at the National Agricultural Research Foundation of Greece. Dr Emad joined the Department of Botany at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, as a Postgraduate Research Assistant and later conducted his PhD and Post-Doctoral research at the University of Helsinki of Forest Pathology and Fungal Biology.

 

 

Steven Nake

Steven Nake is the Smallholder and Socioeconomic Research (SSR) section head. His primary role involves coordinating research and extension services in the smallholder sector and leading a team of researchers and field officers in researching to improve productivity and strengthen the economic and social well-being of smallholder households.  Steven started his career with Coffee Research Institute (now CIC) as an Agronomist from 1999-2003. His role involved managing coffee multi-locational trials, crop forecasting, deriving fertiliser requirements for coffee plantations and smallholders, laying out field experiments and data analysis and reporting. In March 2003, Steven joined PNGOPRA in Popondetta and managed agronomy trials in Popondetta and Milne Bay. He was transferred to Milne Bay in August 2006 and was there until February 2007, when he left for postgraduate studies at James Cook University, Australia. Upon completing his studies in 2009, he was transferred to Dami WNB and took over managing Agronomy trials in NBPOL and Hargy Oil Palms. He assumed that role until March 2015, when he was appointed to head the new Smallholder and Socioeconomic Research section.

Steven currently holds an MSc in Soil Chemistry from James Cook University Australia and a Bachelor in Agriculture Science from PNG University of Technology.