In addition to teaching and graduate student supervision, I have been building mentorship resources for graduate students and junior scholars in Buddhist Studies. I am committed to offering positive support to colleagues, students, and community members. I support collaborative practices that recognize the importance of difference while maintaining safety and respect for all. I will not tolerate harassment, bullying, or discriminatory behaviors that perpetuate systemic or social injustice.
Some recent examples of my work in mentorship and student support include:
In 2020, I began producing the “How Do You Do It?” series, in which I asked scholars in Buddhist Studies to record short videos demonstrating how they manage various tasks critical to working in our field. Here I featured voices of people in our field talking about the nuts-and-bolts aspects of our work, sharing a variety of practical skills that are not often taught in courses, and exposing aspects of how scholarship takes place that are not easily visible in the end-products of our publications.
In 2021, I facilitated the creation of the Buddhist Studies Complaint Collective series #stepforwardbs, which features discussions of the academic culture of our field, and I organized resources and events on student mental health. In 2022, I created Windvane: Paths to Wellbeing, which offers resources and practical exercises for understanding and encouraging wellbeing for students in higher education.
Graduate Courses
RLG2005 Religion and Posthumanism (2024)
RLG468H Buddhism and Healing (2022)
RLG3419H Teaching Buddhist Studies (2020)
RLG3454H The Kālacakra Tantra (2018)
RLG3490H Buddhist Auto/Biography (2016)
RLG404H/1200Y Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (2006 | 2007 | 2008)
RLG484H History and Historiography of Buddhism (2004 | 2014)
RLG492H/3454Y Readings in Tibetan Buddhist Literature (2004 | 2006 | 2015)
RLG3458H Rhetoric and Discipline in Buddhist Studies (2007)
RLG3456 Tantra in Tibet: The Gastrosemantics of Ritual (2009)
RLG3480 Religion and Magic in Asia (2010)
Student-Faculty Research Groups
In addition to regular courses, over the years I have worked with students in research teams; the following are some examples from recent years:
- I worked with a team of students for over a year on the creation of a Classical Tibetan online language program.
- With several faculty, I co-organized a Kālacakra Tantra reading program for graduate students involving several courses joined together, for Winter 2018
- With graduate students Sarah Richardson, Ben Wood and Kunga Sherab, I worked for several years on a digital humanities project focused on the students’ research on Shalu monastery
- I worked with faculty, students, and community members in Canada and Tibet over several years on research related to the Tibetan Gesar epic
- I am now working with a team of students and community members on Tibetan and Himalayan beyul (Hidden Lands) traditions
- I organized a team of Toronto students and Tibetan students for a couple of years on a project related to Tibetan and Burmese participatory film and image making
- I’m creative producer for a team of faculty creating an academic podcast on teaching Buddhist Studies in higher education
Graduate Students Supervised
Doctoral Students (Active)
Rory Tasker, Tibetan Buddhist education
Thinley Gyatso, Tibetan Buddhist ecological writing
Andrew Dade, Buddhism in Myanmar
Ian Turner, Newar domestic life
Diane Fereig (University of Alberta), Tibetan yoga
Doctoral Students (Completed)
Andrea Wollein, Newar Buddhism
Barbara Hazelton, Tibetan epic literature
Amber Moore, Newar Buddhism
Nick Field, Tibetan Dunhuang Buddhism
Kunga Sherab, Buddhist philosophy
Andrew Erlich, Tibetan medical history
Jennifer Bright, Tibetan Buddhism and medicine
Sean Hillman, Medical ethics in South Asia
Matt King, Buddhist revivalism in Mongolia
Ben Wood, Cosmology and soteriology in Tibetan Buddhism
Sarah Richardson, Tibetan Buddhist art history
Usha Khosla, Buddha-nature in Indian Buddhism
MA Students (Completed)
Jasmine Lew, Physical cultures for racialized womxn
Tenzin Tsundue, Buddhism and psychology
Molly Mignault, Religion and waste in Himalayan India
Daigengna Duoer, Mongolian Buddhism
Annie Heckman, Tibetan Buddhism
Kunga Sherab, Buddhist philosophy
Nick Field, Tibetan Dunhuang Buddhism
Andrew Erlich, Tibetan medical history
Barbara Hazelton, Tibetan epic literature
Sean Hillman, End-of-life care in Buddhism
Helen Craigie, End-of-life practices in Buddhism
Matt King, Buddhist revivalism in Mongolia
Rory Lindsay, Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophy
Ryan Jones, Tibetan historical thinking
Creon Corea, Buddhism in Sri Lanka
MA Students (Active)
Daniel Owens, Tibetan Buddhist ethics
