Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism

Xingyi Wang

2021-2023 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow of Chinese Buddhism

Xingyi Wang was the 2021-2023 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow of Chinese Buddhism. Her research includes Buddhist monasticism, Vinaya studies, and Buddhist ethics. Born and raised in China, she received her MTS (2015) from Harvard Divinity School and Ph.D. (2021) from Harvard University. Her dissertation focuses on the commentarial tradition of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya and the formation of the Vinaya School through the cultural exchanges between Song China and Kamakura Japan. During her stay at UC Berkeley, she is expected to explore topics on Buddhist monasticism in the Yuan Dynasty.

Mengxiao Wang

2019-2021 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism

Mengxiao Wang was the 2019-2021 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow of Chinese Buddhism. Her research focuses on religion and literature in late imperial China, with a special interest in the intersections between ritual and theatrical performance, religious practice and literary form, elite culture and folk traditions. Born and raised in China, she received her B.A. (2009) and M.A. (2012) from Beijing Normal University, and her Ph.D. (2019) from Yale University. Her Ph.D. dissertation explores the interactions and negotiations between theater and Buddhism in 16th-18th-century China. At Berkeley...

Cody Bahir

2017-2019 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism

Cody Bahir was the 2017-2019 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Scholar of Chinese Buddhism. His research focuses on the magical and supernatural aspects of modern Chinese religiosity. He was awarded his PhD in Asian Studies from Leiden University in 2017. He additionally holds an MA in Philosophy and Religion focused on Chinese Buddhism from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and another in Jewish Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). His MA thesis was on the medieval Kabbalistic understanding of the ‘evil eye.’ His BA in Jewish Studies is from American...

Tzu-lung Chiu

2016-2017 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism

Tzu-Lung Chiu was the Sheng Yen Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism, 2016-2017. Her research focuses on Indian Vinaya rules, contemporary Chinese Buddhism, gender, the Chinese diaspora, and Buddhist rituals and practices.Having completed her Ph.D. studies at Ghent University, Belgium, in 2016. Her thesis explored how original Indian vinaya monastic rules are applied in the modern bhikkhunī sangha, and to explore how Chinese nunneries inherit traditional monastic rules to meet contemporary needs and achieve future goals. From 2017-2021, she has worked as a postdoctoral...

Pei-Ying Lin

2015-2017 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism

Pei-Ying Lin was the Sheng Yen Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism, 2015-2017. Her research interests are Chan Buddhism, ordination rituals, Bodhisattva precepts, and Buddhist discourse on cultural identity. She studied at National Taiwan University (BA in Political Science, 2002), Cambridge University (MPhil in Oriental Studies, 2006), and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (PhD in the Study of Religion, 2012). Her thesis brought together a wide range of documents from ninth-century China, Japan and Korea, and cross-culturally examined the...

Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies

Samuel Grimes

2022-2024 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies

Samuel Grimes is Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies. His research centers primarily on Sanskritic Vajrayāna in South Asia and Newar Buddhism in Nepal. He received an MA from the University of Hawai’i, MPhil from Oxford University, and PhD from the University of Virginia. His dissertation examined responses to crises among Buddhists of the Nepal Valley (Kathmandu Valley), and it included ethnographic work in contemporary Newar Buddhism, as well as an examination of the state of Vajrayāna in the Valley in the 13th century and the centuries leading up to that period. He...

Jed Forman

2021-2022 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies

Jed Forman received his undergrad in philosophy from Tufts University with a special certificate for additional studies in Ethics, Law, and Society. There he was awarded a grant to work with the R.F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation to develop ethical investment guidelines for the Norweigan Petroleum Fund. He also received the Dance Studies Award given to one graduating senior from the dance department. After college, he had a successful seven-year career as a computer programmer and street dancer, performing and teaching in New York, LA, and internationally. Jed received his M.S. with...

Ian MacCormack

2019-2021 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies

Ian MacCormack was the 2019-2021 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies. He specializes in Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the relationship between religion and the Tibetan State.

Katarina Turpeinen

2017-2019 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies

Katarina Turpeinen was a Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies. She specializes in Indo-Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, particularly the Tibetan Great Perfection tradition. Her dissertation analyzes and contextualizes an influential 14th-century anthology, The Unimpeded Realization of Samantabhadra, revealed by Rindzin Gödem. During a four and half year period of doctoral research in India and Nepal, Katarina translated the anthology and studied the context of the Great Perfection while living in Tibetan monasteries. Katarina received her PhD in Religious Studies from the...

Qian Lin

2015-2017 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies

Qian Lin studied Buddhist philosophy, history, and languages at the University of Bristol, and the University of Washington. He also worked as a research associate in the Early Buddhist Manuscript Project (EBMP) at the University of Washington. He received his PhD in 2015 from the University of Washington with a thesis on the section of mind in the Chengshi Lun (成實論 *Tattvasiddhi), which is also an in-depth study on the formation and development of the Abhidharma concepts of “mental factor” (caitta or caitasika) and “association” (saṃprayoga), which are the key concepts in the Abhidharma...

Other

Marta Sanvido

2021-2023 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Japanese Buddhism

Marta Sanvido was a Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral fellow in Japanese Buddhism at UC Berkeley. Before moving to Berkeley, Dr. Sanvido worked as an adjunct professor of Japanese Language and Culture at Ca’Foscari University of Venice (a.a. 2019-2020). She earned a Ph.D. in Japanese religions from the same university in 2019. During her doctoral years, she conducted two years of fieldwork in Japanese temples and archives with the generous support of the Ca’Foscari International Bursary and the Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship. Sanvido’s research interests lie in the intersection of different...

Oren Hanner

2018-2019 Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow

Oren Hanner was the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies for 2018 and 2019. From 2021 to 2024, he served as Visiting Assistant Professor at the Philosophy Program at NYU, Abu Dhabi, where he taught courses on Buddhist, South-Asian, as well as Western philosophy. Starting from Fall 2024, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Philosophy at the Arts and Humanities Division, Duke Kunshan University. Oren’s main areas of research are Buddhist and Cross-Cultural Philosophy, with a special interest in ethics, philosophy of action, and...

Jack Meng-Tat Chia

2017-2019 SNUS-Overseas Postdoctoral Fellow

Jack Meng-Tat Chia was a National University of Singapore-Overseas Postdoctoral Fellow. He is a historian of religions who studies Buddhism and Chinese popular religion in maritime Southeast Asia, with a focus on the transregional circulation of people, ideas and resources. Born and raised in Singapore, he received his BA (Hons) and MA from the National University of Singapore, his second MA from Harvard University, where he was a Harvard-Yenching Scholar, and his PhD from Cornell University. He is currently working on his book manuscript tentatively titled “Diaspora’s Dharma: Buddhism and...

Erez Joskovich

2016-2018 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Japanese Buddhism

Erez Joskovich was the Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Japanese Buddhism (2016-18). He specializes in the intellectual and religious history of Chan/Zen Buddhism, with a particular focus on the development of Japanese Zen since the 18th century to the present. His doctoral dissertation is a detailed study of the development of lay Zen in modern Japan. While working on his dissertation he was awarded fellowships from the Japan Foundation and the Japanese Ministry of Education. The fellowships enabled him to work as a visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo (2008-12). He received his...

Michaela Mross

2014-2016 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Japanese Buddhism

Michaela Mross was the Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Japanese Buddhism, 2014-16. Her research interests are Zen Buddhism, Buddhist rituals, sacred music, and manuscript and print culture in premodern Japan. She completed her PhD in Japanese Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich in 2014 with a thesis on kōshiki (Buddhist ceremonials) in the Sōtō school after having conducted research at the Komazawa University and the Research Institute for Japanese Music Historiography of the Ueno Gakuen University from 2007-2013. Before coming to Berkeley, she was a research associate (...