Jeffrey Hopkins

UMA Institute for Tibetan Studies

Jeffrey Hopkins is Professor Emeritus of Tibetan Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia where he taught Tibetan Buddhist Studies and Tibetan language for thirty-two years from 1973. He received a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1963, trained for five years at the Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America in Freewood Acres, New Jersey, USA (now the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center in Washington, New Jersey), and received a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin in 1973. He served as H.H. the Dalai Lama’s chief interpreter into English on lecture tours for ten years, 1979-1989. At the University of Virginia he founded programs in Buddhist Studies and Tibetan Studies and served as director of the Center for South Asian Studies for twelve years. He has published thirty-nine books in a total of twenty-two languages, as well as twenty-three articles. Recently, Professor Hopkins has established the UMA Institute for Tibetan Studies and is working on translation projects related to the Gomang Project, among others.