Robert A. F. Thurman

Robert A. F. Thurman (born August 3, 1941) is an American Buddhist scholar, author, translator, and activist. He was the Jey Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University (the first endowed chair in Buddhist Studies in the West) and is co-founder and president of Tibet House US and Menla Mountain Retreat Center. Thurman has written, edited, and translated numerous works on Tibetan Buddhism, is a longtime friend of the Dalai Lama, and has been a prominent voice for Tibetan cultural preservation and Buddhist studies in the West.