Prominent Buddhist scholars & emeritus in the US

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The first Tibetan Buddhist lama to have American students was Geshe Ngawang Wangyal, a Kalmyk-Mongolian of the Gelug lineage, who came to the United States in 1955 and founded the “Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America” in New Jersey in 1958.

Among his students were the future western scholars Robert Thurman, Jeffrey Hopkins, Alexander Berzin and Anne C. Klein.

Other early arrivals included Dezhung Rinpoche, a Sakya lama who settled in Seattle, in 1960, and Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, the first Nyingma teacher in America, who arrived in the US in 1968 and established the “Tibetan Nyingma Meditation Center” in Berkeley, California, in 1969.

Here comes the life and achievements of some prominent Buddhist scholars and emeritus from the United States.

Karma Lekshe Tsomo

Karma Lekshe Tsomo is a Buddhist nun, scholar and social activist. She is a professor at the University of San Diego, where she teaches Buddhism, World Religions, and Dying, Death, and Social Justice. She is co-founder of the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women and the founding director of the Jamyang Foundation, which supports the education of women and girls in the Himalayan region, the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, and elsewhere. She took novice precepts as a Buddhist nun in France in 1977 and full ordination in Korea in 1982.

Kenneth K. Tanaka

Kenneth Ken’ichi Tanaka, also known as Kenshin Tanaka or Ken’ichi Tanaka is a scholar, author, translator and ordained Jōdo Shinshū priest. He is author and editor of many articles and books on modern Buddhism.

Dennis Hirota

Dr. Dennis Hirota is a professor in the Department of Shin Buddhism at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan. He was born in Berkeley, California in 1946 and received his B.A. from University of California, Berkeley. In 2008, he was a visiting professor of Buddhism at Harvard Divinity School where his studies focused on the Buddhist monk Shinran.

Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Dr. Donald Sewell Lopez Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures.

Taitetsu Unno

Taitetsu Unno was a scholar, lecturer, and author on the subject of Pure Land Buddhism. His work as a translator has been responsible for making many important Buddhist texts available to the English-speaking world and he is considered one of the leading authorities in the United States on Shin Buddhism, a branch of Pure Land Buddhism. Dr. Unno was an ordained Shin Buddhist minister and the founding Sensei of the Northampton Shin Buddhist Sangha.

Janet Gyatso

Janet Gyatso is a Religious Studies scholar currently employed as the Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies and the Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Harvard Divinity School. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Gyatso’s research interests are in Buddhism and its relationship to Tibetan and South Asian civilizations.

Victor H. Mair

Victor Henry Mair is an American sinologist. He is a professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania. Among other accomplishments, Mair has edited the standard Columbia History of Chinese Literature and the Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. Mair is the series editor of the Cambria Sinophone World Series, and his book coauthored with Miriam Robbins Dexter, Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia, won the Sarasvati Award for the Best Nonfiction Book in Women and Mythology.

Steven Heine

Steven Heine, is a scholar in the field of Zen Buddhist history and thought, particularly the life and teachings of Zen Master Dōgen (1200–1253). He has also taught and published extensively on Japanese religion and society in worldwide perspectives. He was the recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette for his contribution to Japanese Studies.

Scott Mitchell (Buddhist scholar)

Scott A. Mitchell is an American scholar of Buddhism who has written extensively on Buddhism in the United States. He is the current Dean of the Institute of Buddhist Studies where he holds the Yoshitaka Tamai Professorial Chair in Shin Buddhist Studies.

Robert Buswell Jr.

Robert Evans Buswell Jr. is an American academic, author and scholar of Korean Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism as well as Korean religions in general. He is Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and founding director of the Academy of Buddhist Studies at Dongguk University, Korea’s main Buddhist university.

Richard Robinson (Buddhism scholar)

Richard Hugh Robinson was a scholar of Buddhism and the founder of the first Buddhist studies program in the United States that awarded a dedicated doctorate degree.

Richard Hayes (professor)

Richard Hayes is an Emeritus professor of Buddhist philosophy at the University of New Mexico. He received his Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian studies from the University of Toronto in 1982. Hayes moved to Canada in 1967 in order to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War.

Paul J. Griffiths

Paul J. Griffiths is an English-born American theologian. He was the Warren Professor of Catholic Thought at Duke Divinity School.

Paul Carus

Paul Carus was a German-American author, editor, a student of comparative religion and philosopher.

Padmanabh Jaini

Padmanabh Shrivarma Jaini was an Indian born scholar of Jainism and Buddhism, living in Berkeley, California, United States. He was from a Digambar Jain family; however he was equally familiar with both the Digambara and Svetambara forms of Jainism. He has taught at the Banaras Hindu University, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and at the University of California at Berkeley, from which he retired in 1994. Professor Jaini was the author of several books and papers. His best known work is The Jaina Path of Purification (1979). Some of his major articles have been published under these titles: The Collected Papers on Jaina Studies (2000) and Collected Papers on Buddhist Studies (2001). He died on 25 May 2021 at Berkeley at age 97.

Albert Welter

Albert Welter is a scholar of East Asian Buddhism, particularly Chinese Buddhism in the Tang to Song Dynasty transition. From 2013, he has served as Professor and Head of the East Asian Studies Department at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and was formerly Chair of the Department of Religion and Culture at the University of Winnipeg (Canada), where he also initiated the East Asian Languages and Cultures program. Welter’s work also encompasses a broader interest in Chinese administrative policies toward Buddhism, including Chinese notions of secularism and their impact on religious beliefs and practices. His work also covers Buddhist interactions with Neo-Confucianism and literati culture. His is currently involved in the Hangzhou Region Buddhist Culture Project, supported by the Khyentse Foundation, in conjunction with Zhejiang University, the Hangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, and the Hangzhou Buddhist Academy. His monograph, A Tale of Two Stūpas: Histories of Hangzhou relic veneration through two of its most enduring monuments, is currently in press (Oxford). Another volume, The Future of China’s Past: Reflections on the Meaning of China’s Rise is under review. He has also received funding from the American Council of Learned Societies for an international conference, “Creating the World of Chan/ Sŏn /Zen: Chinese Chan Buddhism and its Spread throughout East Asia.” Dr. Welter’s research was supported for many years by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and is widely regarded as an expert in his area of scholarship.

Masatoshi Nagatomi

Masatoshi Nagatomi was Japanese professor of Buddhist studies at Harvard University. He was also known by his nickname “Mas.” Nagatomi is remembered for introducing the term Nikaya Buddhism as a replacement for Hinayana Buddhism, a historical term for non-Mahayana sects of Buddhism that many modern Buddhists consider derogatory.

Alfred Bloom (Buddhist)

Alfred Bloom was a pioneer of Jōdo Shinshū studies in the English-speaking world.

John S. Strong

John S. Strong is an American academic, who is the Charles A. Dana Professor at Bates College in the Department of Religious Studies. Strong specializes in Buddhist studies and with emphasis on the Buddha’s biography, relics, and the legends and cults of South Asia.

Jason Josephson Storm

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm is an American academic, philosopher, social scientist, and author. He is currently Professor and Chair in the Department of Religion and Chair in Science and Technology Studies at Williams College. He also holds affiliated positions in Asian studies and Comparative Literature at Williams College. Storm’s research focuses on Japanese religions, European intellectual history from 1600 to the present, and theory in religious studies. His more recent work has discussed disenchantment and philosophy of social science.

Jan Nattier

Jan Nattier is an American scholar of Mahāyana Buddhism.

James Robson (academic)

James Robson is James C. Kralik and Yunli Lou Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University and William Fung Director of the Harvard University Asia Center.

Jacqueline Stone

Jacqueline Ilyse Stone is an emeritus Professor of Japanese Religion in the Department of Religion at Princeton University’s Department of Religion and a specialist in Japanese Buddhism, particularly Kamakura Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhism from medieval to modern times, and deathbed practices in Japan, She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Gregory Schopen

Gregory Schopen is Professor of Buddhist Studies at University of California, Los Angeles. He received his B.A. majoring in American literature from Black Hills State College, M.A. in history of religions from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and Ph.D. in South Asian and Buddhist studies from the Australian National University in Canberra. His Ph.D thesis is titled “Bhaisajyaguru-sutra and the Buddhism of Gilgit.”

Frederick J. Streng

Frederick John Streng was a noted scholar in Buddhist-Christian studies, author, editor, leader of religious organizations, and Professor of the History of Religions, Southern Methodist University in Texas from 1974 to 1993. He was one of the founding members of the Society for Buddhist-Christian studies, which has bestowed the Frederick Streng Book Award for Excellence in Buddhist-Christian Studies in his honor since 1997.

Elizabeth Napper

Elizabeth Napper is the author of Dependent-Arising and Emptiness, A Tibetan Buddhist Interpretation of Madhyamika Philosophy, Emphasizing the Compatibility of Emptiness and Conventional Phenomena. She has a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of Virginia. The book is based on her PhD thesis, supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship.

Anne Blackburn

Anne M. Blackburn is a historian of South and Southeast Asian Buddhism. She is Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University. Blackburn received her B.A. in Asian History and Religion in 1988 from Swarthmore College, her M.A. in Religious Studies in 1990 from University of Chicago Divinity School, and her Ph.D. in History of Religions in 1996 from the same institution. Blackburn’s teachers include Charles Hallisey.

William Bodiford

William M. Bodiford is an American professor and author. He teaches Buddhist Studies and the religion of Japan and East Asia at the University of California, Los Angeles.