Dr Molle is also an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow, and Deputy-Director of the International Centre for Polynesian Archaeological Research (Centre International de Recherche Archéologique sur la Polynésie (CIRAP)), Tahiti.

His doctoral thesis at the University of French Polynesia (2007-2011) was a study of the pre-contact past on the island of Ua Huka (Marquesas). He is particularly interested in human settlement in the Pacific and is developing an archaeological approach to ritual in order to document more fully the ancient Polynesian religious systems.

Dr Molle’s research interests include: the human colonisation of Oceania, island socio-ecosystems, the evolution of chiefdoms, the development of ceremonial architecture, ancient funerary practices, and Pacific material culture. He has led or co-led several research missions in the Marquesas Islands, the Gambier and Tuamotu Archipelagos and on the atoll of Teti’aroa. He has published a number of scholarly articles and monographs and is currently preparing a work on the archaeological history of the Marquesas Islands to be published by the University of Hawai’i Press.