Associate Professor Sumit Pitiphat is from Nakhon Phanom. He graduated in B. Sc. in Mathematics at Ohio University (1961). Later he turned his interests to social sciences and enrolled in Michigan University. He continued his study in Harvard University. After his graduation he was lecturer, later Associate Professor, at Thammasat University. In 1988-1992 he assumed the Dean of Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and ascended the Director of Thai Khadi Research Institute between 1993 and 1999.
Associate Professor Sumit is interested in Tai ethnic studies and conducted fieldworks in different areas where the Tai live and settle such as in Vietnam, Laos, China, Burma and so on. He also is a specialist on hand-woven textiles of Tai ethnic group
The collection consists of 1031 photographs taken by Sumit Pitiphat during his ethnographic fieldwork among Tai ethnic groups in Southwest China and Southeast Asia. The fieldwork was conducted in different periods of time from 1996-2004 in Lao, Vietnam, and China.
