2026-2027 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies
Jetsun Deleplanque is the 2026-2027 Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley. His research and teaching expertise covers Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist history, sociology and literature, with a particular interest in questions related to religion and political power and the construction of religious authority. He received his PhD in the History of Religions from the University of Chicago’s Divinity school. His current book project, drawing from his doctoral thesis entitled, “Visions of Theocracy: The Rise of Ecclesiastical Power in Tibet and the Founding of the Bhutanese State...
2025-2027 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow of Chinese Buddhism
Numata Center for Buddhist Studies
Lu Huang received her PhD from Temple University in May 2025. Her research interests include the transmission of Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma in early medieval China, with a particular focus on the thought of Abhidharma masters before Xuanzang. Her publications, which have appeared in Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies and Religions, explore issues such as the borderland complex and the construction of religious authority within transnational transmission networks spanning India, Central Asia, and China.
Her dissertation investigates a sacred site called “...
UC Berkeley Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies
Numata Center for Buddhist Studies
Patrick Magoffin is a specialist in the history of Chinese Buddhism. In particular, he focuses on exegesis and pedagogy, approaches to cultivation, and monastic communities and institutions in the medieval period. He received his PhD in Religious Studies from Brown University.
He is developing a manuscript drawn from his dissertation which examines the soteriological vision of a Tiantai group in the Northern Song (960–1127) later branded heretical. He recovers and recontextualizes their doctrinal perspectives and frameworks for practice, shedding light on a broader tension in...
UC Berkeley Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies
Numata Center for Buddhist Studies
Xiaoqiang Meng specializes in Indian Buddhism, with a focus on the approach of textual criticism. He received his PhD in Buddhist Studies from Leiden University in the Netherlands in 2026. His research examines the confluence of early Buddhist cosmology and demonology, taking the Asura as a point of entry and exploring its narrative, religio-cultural, and historical-textual dimensions across Buddhist lands. During his BA studies, he studied the history of the Mongol-Yuan dynasty, and during his MA, he focused on Kṣemendra’s Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā. His current project investigates the...
