Graduate Training & Mentorship

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

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:

Graduate Students Supervised

Doctoral Students (Active)

Thinley Gyatso, Buddhist hermeneutics

Andrew Dade, Buddhism in Myanmar

Amber Moore, Newar Buddhism

Nick Field, Tibetan Dunhuang Buddhism

Barbara Hazelton, Tibetan epic literature

Ian Turner, Newar domestic life

Andrea Wollein, Newar Buddhism

Diane Fereig (University of Alberta), Tibetan yoga

Doctoral Students (Completed)

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)

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)

Jasmine Lew, Physical cultures for racialized womxn

Group shot of graduate students and faculty from University of Toronto and McMaster University at a weekend writing retreat
Graduate students and faculty from University of Toronto and McMaster University at a weekend writing retreat in fall 2019, at Harmony Dawn Retreat Centre