Core Faculty
Richard B. Barnett
Associate Professor, Department of History (Early modern South Asia, contemporary Pakistan)
Director, 1982-85
rbb@virginia.edu
John Campbell
Director, Contemplative Sciences Center
jrc4aa@virginia.edu
Griffith Chaussée
Senior Lecturer, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures (Hindi and Urdu language and literature)
gc4n@virginia.edu
Mrinalini Chakravorty
Associate Professor, Department of English (Postcolonial Literature and Theory)
mc5je@virginia.edu
John Echeverri-Gent
Associate Professor, Department of Politics (Political Economy and Public Policy)
jee8p@virginia.edu
Daniel Ehnbom
Associate Professor, Department of Art History (South Asian Art)
Director, South Asia Center
dje6r@virginia.edu
Mehr Farooqi
Associate Professor, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures (South Asian literature in Hindi, Urdu, and English)
maf5y@virginia.edu
David Germano
Professor, Department of Religious Studies (Tibetan studies, Buddhist studies, Tantric studies, Tibetan language and literature)
dfg9w@virginia.edu
zh2f@virginia.edu
Robert A. Hueckstedt
Professor, Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (Sanskrit and Hindi language and literature)
rah2k@virginia.edu
Alireza Khorangy
Assistant Professor, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures (Persian language and literature)
ak3pg@virginia.edu
Ravindra S. Khare
Professor, Department of Anthropology (India, social anthropology, symbolism, food studies, popular culture)
rsk3m@virginia.edu
Karen C. Lang
Professor, Department of Religious Studies (Indian/Theravada Buddhist studies, Sanskrit, and Pali)
kcl@virginia.edu
Karen C. Lang is Professor of Buddhist Studies and Indian Religions and Director of the Center for South Asian Studies. As a member of UVA's Religious Studies Department since 1982, she has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on Buddhist history and philosophy, including seminars on Buddhist and Hindu Ethics, Jainism, Mahayana Budddhism, and Buddhism and Gender, as well as reading courses in Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan. She has received Fulbright, NEH, and AIIS fellowships. Her publications include Four Illusions: Candrakirti's Advice on the Bodhisattva Path, Aryadeva on the Bodhisattva’s Cultivation of Merit and Knoweldge (translated into German in 2007), and numerous articles on Buddhist philosophy and literature. Professor Lang was a member of the translation team that produced the first English translation of Tsongkhapa’s The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. Her current research and translation interests focus on the work of 7th-century Buddhist philosopher Candrakirti.
Christine Mahoney
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Policy and Politics
cm2cg@virginia.edu
Dr. Mahoney's research focuses on advocacy and activism; specifically she studies the framing, messaging and strategic decisions of civil society organizations seeking to change public policy.
Among her current major research initiatives is a projects that looks at global advocacy on behalf of the displaced. This research is based, in part, on fieldwork in 7 of the largest protracted displacement crises worldwide (Bhutan, Burma, Colombia, Croatia, Sri Lanka, Somalia, and Uganda)
Philip McEldowney
South Asian Bibliographer and Librarian for Anthropology and Religious Studies, Alderman Library
pm9k@virginia.edu
Farzaneh Milani
Raymond J. Nelson Professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures (Persian language and literature, Islamic women and culture)
fmm2z@virginia.edu
Mashad Mohit
Lecturer, Middle Easter and South Asian languages and Cultures (Persian)
Neeti Nair
Associate Professor, Department of History (Modern South Asia)
nn2v@virginia.edu
John Nemec
Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies (Indian Religions)
jwn3y@virginia.edu.edu
My research centers on the Indian intellectual and cultural history, particularly the philosophy and literature of the Kashmir Valley of the ninth to twelfth centuries, a period when the Valley was perhaps the most important intellectual center of South Asia. My areas of specialization are Tantric (i.e. Indian Esoteric) Studies, Sanskrit, and South Asian Religions. A full CV and .pdf copies of selected publications may be found through the following link: http://virginia.academia.edu/JNemec
Tsetan Nepali
Lecturer East Asian Languages and Cultures (Tibetan)
tn8c@virginia.edu
Arnico Panday
Research Assistant Professor, Atmospheric Sciences, Department of Evironmental Science
akp5x@virginia.edu
Geeta Patel
Associate Professor, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures and Studies in Women and Gender
ghp5v@virginia.edu.edu
Bradford L. Phillips
Assistant Director, Contemplative Sciences Center
blp4m@virginia.edu
Ashok Rajput
Lecturer, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures (Hindi and Urdu Language and literature)
akr9w@virginia.edu
Abdulaziz A. Sachedina
Professor, Department of Religious Studies (Islamic and Middle East Studies:legal-ethical studies, bioethics, religion, and politics)
Associate Director, 1982-85
aas@virginia.edu
Kurtis Schaeffer
Professor, Department of Religious Studies
ks6bb@virginia.edu
A graduate of Harvard University's Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies (2000), Kurtis R. Schaeffer is Professor in the History of Religions section of the Department of Religious Studies, and currently serves as Associate Chairman of the Department. Before coming to the University of Virginia in 2005, he was a member of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama from 2000 to 2005. Schaeffer's work focuses on the cultural and intellectual history of Tibet. His recent publications include The Culture of the Book in Tibet (Columbia University Press, 2009) and, with Leonard van der Kuijp, An Early Tibetan Survey of Buddhist Literature (Harvard Oriental Series 64, 2009). Schaeffer is a past co-director of the Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Group in the American Academy of Religion, and is currently leading a seminar on "Religion and the Literary in Tibet" at the AAR. He also serves as the Book Review Editor for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. He is the recipient of Fulbright, Ryskamp, and Whiting fellowships. His current projects include a book on the idea of the Dalai Lama, a translation of an eighteenth century Bhutanese life story of the Buddha, and a study of traditional literary criticism and poetics in Tibet.
Sheetal Sekhri
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics
ssekhri@virginia.edu
Associate Faculty
Leslie Blackhall
Associate Professor, Medical School, Internal Medicine (Tibetan Buddhism and Medicine)
lb9x@virginia.edu
John Bonvillian
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology (Child Development)
jdb5b@virginia.edu
Phoebe Crisman
Associate Professor, School of Architecture; Associate Dean for Research
crsiman@virginia.edu
Frederick H. Damon
Professor, Department of Anthropology (Economic anthropology, social change in South Asia)
fhd@virginia.edu
Scott K. Deveaux
Associate Professor, Department of Music (Ethnomusicology)
skd9r@virginia.edu
Nathaniel Garson
Research Assistant, Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library
ndg8f@virginia.edu
Paul Groner
Professor, Department of Religious Studies (Buddhist studies)
psg3w@virginia.edu
Leigh Grossman
Professor, Medical School (Pediatrics)
lgd@virginia.edu
Richard Guerrant
Professor, Medical School (Infectious Diseases)
rlg9a@virginia.edu
Jonathan Haidt
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology (Psychological anthropology, emotion and morality)
jdh6n@virginia.edu
Yunsheng Huang
Associate Professor, School of Architecture (Architecture of Asia)
yh6d@virginia.edu
Michelle Kisliuk
Associate Professor, Music Department (Ethnomusicology)
mk6k@virginia.edu
Michael Krepon
Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Politics (Security in South Asia)
mk4ub@virginia.edu
Shawn Lyons
Dean/Associate Professor, Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (Central Asia)
stl8m@virginia.edu
David Newman
Research Assistant, THDL
dln4n@virginia.edu
Marga Odahowski
Director of Studies, International Residential College
mmo2a@virginia.edu
Sonal Shradkumar Pandya
Assistant Professor, Department of Politics
ssp5d@virginia.edu
Bryan Pfaffenberger
Associate Professor of Technology, Culture and Communications, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (Sri Lanka, anthropology of technology)
Associate Director, 1987-89
bp@virginia.edu
Kamalini Ramdas
Associate Professor, Darden Graduate School of Business
kr5e@virginia.edu
Sandhya Shukla
Associate Professor, Department of English
ss9fp@virginia.edu
Nawang Thokmey
Sr. Tech/Prog Support, Alderman Library (Tibetan Collection)
nt5y@virginia.edu
Kath Weston
Professor, Department of Anthropology and Director, Studies in Women and Gender (Andaman and Nicobar Islands)
kmw7j@eservices.virginia.edu
Peter Waldman
Professor, School of Architecture
pdw7e@virginia.edu
Dorothy Wong
Associate Professor, Art History (Chinese Buddhist art)
dcw7a@virginia.edu
Steve Weinberger
Research Assistant, THDL
snw8f@virginia.edu
Muhammad S. Yusuf
Reference Assistant, Alderman Library (South Asian affairs)
msy@virginia.edu
Emeritus Faculty And Visiting Scholars
Cynthia Benton-Groner
Retired Associate Director
cbg5e@virginia.edu
Alfred P. Fernbach
Professor Emeritus, Department of Politics (Foreign policy and contemporary politics)
Harold Gould
Visiting Scholar, Center for South Asian Studies (Political anthropology, South Asian civilization).
harold.gould4@verizon.net
Walter Hauser
Professor Emeritus, Department of History (Twentieth-century India, peasant movements, electoral politics)
Director, 1976-79
wh2r@virginia.edu
Jeffrey Hopkins
Professor Emeritus, Department of Religious Studies (Tibetan studies, Tantrism, Buddhist philosophy, Tibetan language)
Director, 1979-1982 and 1985-94
pjh9q@virginia.edu
Peter Hook
Professor, Visiting Scholar, Center for South Asian Studies, (Linguistics of South Asian languages)
peter.e.hook@gmail.com
Murrary Milner
Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology
mm5k@virginia.edu
Wallace E. Reed
Associate Professor Emeritus, Department of Environmental Sciences (Urban and Economic Geography)
wer@virginia.edu
John Roberts
Assoc. Prof. Emeritus, Sanskrit & Hindi
jtr8a@virginia.edu
H. L. Seneviratne
Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology (Sri Lanka, social theory, Theravada Buddhism, nationalism, and ethnicity)
hls@virginia.edu