Professor Robert Thurman
Buddhist Studies, Columbia University / President of the Tibet House

Robert A.F. Thurman is co-founder and current President of Tibet House U.S. a cultural institution dedicated to preserving and promoting the wisdom and the arts of the distinctive and endangered Tibetan civilization.

Robert A.F. Thurman lives to make the teachings of the Buddha interesting and meaningful to people from all over the world. In doing so, he has been recognized as one of America's leading voices for sanity and peace in the new millennium. In 1997, Time Magazine chose him as one of its 25 most influential Americans. Working at  Columbia University. his intention is to enrich contemporary thought and practice through the profound and vast
Buddhist philosophy and psychology.

Noted in a NY Times Magazine profile as “The Dalai Lama’s man in America,” and having been named by Time Magazine one of the “25 Most Influential Americans,” Robert Thurman has cultivated a worldwide awareness of Tibet through his writing, translation of important Buddhist texts, and activism. He is the co-founder with Richard Gere of Tibet House US and currently serves as the President of its Board of Trustees. Thurman has dedicated his life to the study and preservation of Tibet’s cultural heritage, and is the first American ordained as a Tibetan monk. All this along with his 45-year friendship with the Dalai Lama makes him the perfect voice for Tibet and its quest for freedom.

Thurman is also the President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, a non-profit affiliated with the Center for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. Having studied with His Holiness the Dalai Lama personally, Thurman was the first American monk of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He is credited with being at the forefront of making Tibetan spirituality, philosophy, and art accessible and understandable in the West. He has a B.A., A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard and has studied in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in India and the United States. He is a popular professor in the Religion Department of Columbia University where he holds the Jey Tsong Khapa chair in Indo-Tibetan Studies. Policy makers and the news media often seek Thurman’s knowledge of Tibetan history and culture. In this capacity, he has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
www.tibethouse.org,  www.bobthurman.com, www.aibs.columbia.edu

• Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World, Atria Books/Beyond Words (2008)
• The Jewel Tree of Tibet: The Enlightenment Engine of Tibetan Buddhism, Free Press (2006)
• Anger: The Seven Deadly Sins, Oxford University Press (2006)
• Infinite Life: Awakening to Bliss Within, Riverhead Trade (2005)
• Circling the Sacred Mountain: A Spiritual Adventure Through the Himalayas, with Tad Wise Bantam (2000)
• Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness, Riverhead Trade (1999)
• Essential Tibetan Buddhism, HarperOne (1996)