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...
Hou Xiaoming 侯笑明 is the 2022-2024 Glorisun Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley. She is a scholar of Chinese Buddhism specializing in cross-cultural transmission and translation. She received her Ph.D. from EPHE/PSL (École Pratique des Hautes Études/Université Paris Sciences et Lettres) in Paris, Department of Religions and Systems of Thought, in the area of History of Religion and Religious Anthropology, in 2022. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Pratiquer le bouddhisme en chinois: traduction et reconstruction des enseignements sur la méditation bouddhique du IIe au VIe siècles en...
2023-2025 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies
Jiangnan Li is the 2023–2025 Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism. His research centers on state-religion relationships in Song Dynasty China (960–1279). He received an M.A. (2015) in Chinese History from Capital Normal University and his Ph.D. (2023) from Arizona State University. His dissertation investigates mechanisms behind the interplays between imperial power and the Three Teachings of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism during the Song Dynasty. At UC Berkeley, he will further explore his interest in Buddhist studies and religious history and work to shape his...