Alumni

Giulio Agostini

Giulio Agostini took his first degree (Laurea) in Classics in Milan, where he also started studying Sanskrit and Pali. He came to Berkeley to specialize in Indian Buddhism; in addition to his work on Sanskrit and Pali materials he acquired facility in Classical Chinese and Tibetan. He completed his dissertation, entitled "Precepts and Upasaka Status: Indian Views of the Buddhist Laity," in May, 2002. He now continues to pursue his research and publishing in the areas Vinaya and Hinayana literature in general, and lay Buddhism in ancient India in particular, while teaching Latin and...

Juhn Ahn

Juhn Ahn received both his B.A. (Asian Studies and Studies in Religion) and M.A. (Buddhist Studies) from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor under the supervision of Prof. Robert Sharf. He completed his dissetation on the topic of "Zen illness" with a special emphasis on the works of Dahui Zonggao (1089-1163), Chin'gak Hyesim (1178-1234), Wuyi Yuanlai (1575-1639), and Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769). Juhn Ahn does research in Japanese, Chinese and Korean Buddhist literature. He holds a joint appointment with the Department for the Study of Religion and the Department of East Asian Studies...

Kris Anderson

Kris Anderson received her B.A. in Asian and Middle East Studies from Northwestern University (2008). She completed research on contemporary Tibetan art in Lhasa, and studied at Tibet University in 2008-2009. Her current research interests focus on theories of translation and strategies employed translating Sanskrit texts into Tibetan during the earlier and later disseminations, and into Chinese.

Emphasis: Sanskrit/Tibetan

Prapod Assavavirulhakarn

Prapod Assavavirulhakarn is Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, where he is also the Thai Director of the Confucius Institute. He is a member of the Governing Board of Nalanda International University. He is a contributor to Past Lives of the Buddha: Wat Si Chum and the Art of Sukhothai (ed. P. Skilling, Bangkok: River Books, 2008) and author of The Ascendancy of Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia (Chiangmai: Silkworm Books, 2011).

Emphasis: Sanskrit/Pali

Dissertation: The Ascendency of Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia....

Carl Bielefeldt

Professor Carl Bielefeldt, specializes in East Asian Buddhism, with particular emphasis on the intellectual history of the Zen traditon. He is the author of Dôgen's Manuals of Zen Meditation and other works on early Japanese Zen, and serves as editor of the Soto Zen Text Project. Co-director of the Stanford Center for Buddhist Studies and the Asian Religion and Cultures Initiative.

Emphasis: Japanese

Dissertation: The "Fukan Zazen-Gi" and the Meditation Teachings of The Japanese Zen Master Dogen. [...

Mark Blum

Mark Blum, Professor and Shinjo Ito Distinguished Chair in Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, received his M.A. in Japanese Literature from UCLA and his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies in 1990 from the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in Pure Land Buddhism throughout East Asia, with a focus on the Japanese medieval period. He also works in the area of Japanese Buddhist reponses to modernism, Buddhist conceptions of death in China and Japan, historical consciousness in Buddhist thought, and the impact of the Nirvana Sutra (Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra) in...

Max Brandstadt

Emphasis: Chinese Buddhism

Dissertation: Xinxing’s Demon: The Three Levels Movement and a Crisis of Scriptural Authority in Sui-Tang Chinese Buddhism, University of California at Berkeley, , 2023,

Robert Buswell

Robert Buswell earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1985. Before returning to academe, he spent seven years as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Korea, which served as the basis of his book The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist Practice in Contemporary Korea(link...

Eun-su Cho

Eun-su Cho is a professor of Buddhist Philosophy at Seoul National University in Korea, and currently the director of the Institute of Philosophical Research. She received her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of California and was an assistant professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include Indian Abhidharma Buddhism, Korean Buddhist thought, and women in Buddhism. She has written numerous articles and book chapters, including "Wŏnch'ŭk's Place in the East Asian Buddhist Tradition," "From Buddha's...

Sung Taek Cho

Emphasis: Korean

Dissertation: The Rise of Mahāyāna Buddhism: A Study of Its Self-Identity and Institutionalization through Reconstructing the Biographical Process of the Buddha[electronic resource](link is external). 1995. 207 p