I am a historian of religion specializing in mythology studies, Tibet, Buddhist literature, women, and sexuality outside the monastery. Currently, I am an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University, and the Director of Graduate Studies.
I am currently completing a book, Consorts in Tibet: A History of Women in The Great Perfection (rdzogs chen).
My research focuses on Tibetan literature about women and meditation in the fourteenth century, a period of the formation of canons in Tibet. These were revealed texts full of traditional and innovative mythologies that reflected Tibetan reception and reinterpretation of Indian Buddhist literary traditions.
My areas of research include:
Goddess traditions in India and Tibet (mkha’ ‘gro ma), Religion and Psychology, Religious Studies, Contemplative Studies, Tibetan Studies, Buddhist Studies, Buddhist literature, Buddhist Philosophy, Women in Buddhism, Feminist Theory, Postcolonial and Decolonial theory, Indigenous studies, Trauma & Resilience, Human Flourishing, History of Tibet, South Asia & East Asia, Buddhist Sexualities.
As a Native American woman and multi-cultural person, I foreground issues of alterity in my teaching and research. My concern is with highlighting multiple life ways and ways of knowing, encouraging students to self-reflectively engage with the worldview of other times and cultures, while become more deeply present with their own worldviews.
My research has been funded by the Tsadra Foundation, the Ford Foundation Fellowship, Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, the Buckner W. Clay Award in the Humanities, Ellen Bayard Weedon Grant and three Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowships. I have also received the University of Virginia Diversity Program Professional Development Award, the University of Virginia Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences Summer Research Award and the Project on Lived Theology Research Award among others.
My work as a scholar began after fifteen years living as a Tibetan Buddhist nun (rnal ‘byor ma) teaching Buddhist philosophy. During this time I was embedded in Tibetan Buddhist communities of India, Nepal, Tibet, and North America. During this time, I ran an international non-profit organization and trained meditation teachers.
Driven to my graduate research by my interest in Tibetan history and women in Buddhism, I earned my MA from University of Virginia in the History of Religions, specializing in Tibetan Buddhism. I then entered the Ph.D. program in Religious Studies. I finished my Ph.D. at University of Virginia in 2023. There, my research focused on women and sexuality in esoteric Tibetan contemplative literature, also known as Great Perfection (rdzogs chen).
I have taught courses as a primary instructor at Dickson College and I taught classes at the University of Virginia, teaching Buddhism in Tibet, Modern Tibetan Language, Tibetan Buddhism Introduction and Buddhism and Gender, and prior to that, serving as a Teaching Assistant for courses on Hinduism and East Asian Religions. Currently I am an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University, where I have taught courses on historical, mythological, and psychological perspectives on Buddhism. In 2024, I taught Theories and Methods in the study of Religion, Applied Religions, and the History of Buddhist Meditation in the Modern World. In 2025, I taught Death, Dying & Reincarnation in Buddhism, Applied Religions, and Women and Sexuality in Buddhism.
I am currently preparing a manuscript for publication based on my dissertation research. It is entitled, Consorts in Tibet, A History of Women in The Great Perfection (rdzogs chen). This focuses on a Study of The Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī (mkha’ ‘gro snying thig), analyzing scriptures of pivotal importance to Tibetan Buddhist contemplative movements in the fourteenth century. These revealed scriptures were redacted and presented by Tibetan luminaries such as Longchenpa (klong chen rab ‘byams pa, 1308-1363), the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (1284-1339) and later, the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617-82). Today, the scriptures continue to define the contemplative curriculum in two of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world. These scriptures are significant as a major early source advocating inclusion of women and dispensing instruction on religious sexuality in Tibetan esoteric culture known as Great Perfection (rdzogs chen).
My research focuses on these texts’ contribution to the missing history of Tibetan yoginīs, non-celibate female adepts in esoteric communities focused on Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) literature. One of Tibet’s own most distinctive contributions to Buddhist philosophy, Great Perfection represented novel post-tantric reinterpretations of key elements of Buddhist philosophy and praxis, producing an extensive body of literary masterpieces that constituted an indigenous Tibetan reinvention of Buddhist tantra. However, how these innovations extended to yoginīs is a question yet to be answered, leaving a gap in understanding how the most influential post-tantric movement in Tibet factors in the history of Buddhist women and sexuality. My research fills that gap.
I show that Tibetan Great Perfection authors transformed myths, ontologies, and taxonomies to blur the boundaries between divine women and human women. In doing so, they reversed the stigma previously associated with women’s bodies and constructed roles for women as consorts in the androcentric world of Tibetan Buddhism. Through these scriptures, consort praxis became central to religious revelations and doctrines of intersubjective liberation in esoteric Buddhism. Nevertheless, they simultaneously reinforced certain forms of institutional control over women – a tension that directly shapes Buddhist gender dynamics today. Indeed, the most urgent crisis facing Buddhist communities worldwide today is the flood of revelations about sexual abuse in Tibetan Buddhism and the intense public debates about female consorts that have followed. This has highlighted the lacuna left by the absence of scholarship on the history and canonical texts that established the roles, ethics, and practices for consort relationships. My research fills this gap. It not only illuminates historical Buddhist practices, it also provides the crucial context for understanding contemporary transnational Buddhist communities and the Tibetan diaspora in their negotiations of gender, sexuality, and religious identity. My methodology combines rigorous textual analysis with decolonial theory to challenge Western-Eurocentric interpretations of Tibetan consort traditions, while centering indigenous Tibetan discourses on gender violence and sexual ethics.
I show how myths shape cultural transformation, directly impacting contemporary issues of religious authority. These findings contribute to multiple fields including mythological studies, decolonial studies, indigenous knowledge systems, Tibetan Studies, Buddhist Studies, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, valuable perspectives that would enrich Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Mythological Studies curriculum.
I have published three articles and one book chapter on this research, “Anatomy of a Ḍākinī; Female Consort Discourse in a Case of Fourteenth-Century Tibetan Buddhist Literature,” in The Journal of Dharma Studies (2020) and “Sexuality in Buddhist Traditions,” for The Cambridge World History of Sexualities Vol 2 (2024). I have two articles published this year, “One Desires You, One Cries; A Taxonomy of Tibetan Consorts,” in Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, and “Non-duality as Yab Yum in Tibetan Great Perfection,” in The Journal of Dharma Studies. Two more articles are in progress, one on the lives of Princess Pemasel (eighth century) who is cited as the reincarnated revealer of The Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī and Interview with a Consort, analyzing the multiple editions of The Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. This research has been presented at major conferences including the American Academy of Religions, the International Association of Buddhist Studies, and International Seminar of Young Tibetologists and it has been funded by the Tsadra Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Fulbright-Hays Fellowship.
I have presented my research at several major conferences including the upcoming presentations at the American Academy of Religions and at the International Association of Buddhist Studies. I am a regularly invited speaker for both academic and public audiences on topics concerning women in Buddhism, Buddhist epistemologies, Feminist Studies of religions, Buddhist sexualities, sexual abuse in Buddhism, the history of Buddhist meditation, and Buddhism outside the monastery in Tibet.