Academic Positions

2015 (fall). Instructor at City College of New York, for the sixteen-week course Asian Studies 20200: Contemporary Asia.

2016–present: Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Religion, Florida State University

Education

1996  Washington University, East Asian Studies department, BA degree

1996–1997  Mandarin Training Center, Taipei, Taiwan, language training

2000–2001  Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, Taipei, Taiwan

2006  Harvard University, Regional Studies East Asia program, MA degree

2007–2009  PhD Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, Group in Buddhist Studies

2012–2013  Visiting PhD Fellow, Institute of World Religions, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Beijing, China

2016  Princeton University, Department of Religion, PhD degree

Honors and awards (selected)

Lien Scholarship for Social Sciences: Full tuition plus stipend for study at Washington University

UC Berkeley Funding: Full funding plus Townsend Fellowship

Summer fieldwork in China funded through the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and the Princeton East Asian Studies Program, 2009, 2010, and 2012

Princeton University Funding: Full tuition plus stipend for five years (2009-2014)

2011–12 and 2014-16: Religion and Public Life Fellowship, CSR, Princeton

2012–13: Fulbright-IIE scholarship for research in China

2013–14: Religion and Culture Fellowship, Center for the Study of Religion (CSR), Princeton

2014-15: ACLS/Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies

2016-18: Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellowship, Department of Religion, Florida State University

Publications

Peer-reviewed journal articles

1.      2005, as first author, with Marcus Bingenheimer. “Buddhist Mummification in Taiwan: Two Case Studies.” Asia Major Third Series, Vol. 15, Part 2, 87-127.

2.      2006. “Flesh Bodies, Stiff Corpses, and Gathered Gold: Mummy Worship, Corpse Processing, and Mortuary Ritual in Contemporary Taiwan.” Journal of Chinese Religions 33, 1-37.

3.      “The Chinese Buddhist Ritual Field: Common Public Rituals in PRC Monasteries Today.” Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies 27, 59-127.

Editor-reviewed journal article

2014. “Xifang xueshujie dui chanzong ‘dongshan famai’ de yanjiu” (A review of Anglophone scholarship on the Chan East Mountain Lineage). Foxue Yanjiu (Buddhist Studies) 22, 350-58. (in Chinese)

Translated and edited books

1.     2007. Annotations, front matter, preface, appendixes, glossary, and other back matter in Orthodox Chinese Buddhism, a translation of Sheng Yen’s Zhengxin de fojiao (North Atlantic Books).

2.     2007, as main translator, with Otto Chang. Orthodox Chinese Buddhism, by Sheng Yen. A translation of Zhengxin de fojiao (North Atlantic Books; 278 pages). This book by a leading Chinese monk and consultant to Taiwanese presidents and prime ministers includes numerous quotations from classical Chinese Buddhist scriptures, histories, and commentaries.

3.     2010, as translator. The Mind Dharma of the Sixth Patriarch, by Sheng Yen (Dharma Drum Publications; 47 pages).

Conference presentations and papers

1.     2011. “The Reintroduction and Diffusion of Mummification Practices in Taiwan, 1959-2011.” Conference paper for the Fourth Congress of the Réseau Asie & Pacifique, presented in Paris.

2.     2012. “A Review of Anglophone Scholarship on the Chan East Mountain Lineage.” Printed in Disan jie Huangmei Chanzong wenhua gaofeng luntan lunwenji, shang (The third Huangmei conference on Chan school culture, part one), and presented (in Chinese) in Hubei, China.

3.     2013. “The Cultural Ontology of the Chinese Monastic.” Printed in Vinaya Texts and Transmission History: New Perspectives and Methods, and presented in Hangzhou, China.

4.     2014. “The Development of Buddhist Seminaries in the PRC since 1980.” Presented at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) annual conference, San Diego.

5.     2015. “Between Buddhism and Academia: Seminaries as Sites for Negotiation between Differing Norms of Inquiry.” Presented (in Chinese) at the Research Forum on Modern and Contemporary Chinese Buddhism, in Taipei, Taiwan.

6.     2016. “Seminaries and the Academic Study of Buddhism.” Presented at the International Forum on Modern Chinese Buddhism, at Princeton University.

Other translation work (chinese-english, selected)

1.     1997. Script for the movie Not One Less, directed by Zhang Yimou.

2.     1998. The Second ROC Modern Ink Painting Exhibition: Perspective of the 21st Century (National Taiwan Arts Education Institute).

3.     1999. Subtitles for the movie Horizons of a Young Couple, directed by Yang Ming-hui.

4.     2000–2003. Translation of numerous booklets, film subtitles, pamphlets, academic articles, speeches, web pages, etc., on Buddhism, while employed by Dharma Drum Foundation, Taipei.

5.     2001–2003. Personal interpreter for the Buddhist monk Sheng Yen and other religious leaders in Taipei, Kyoto, and Moscow at meetings, conferences, a lecture series, and a meditation retreat.

6.     2009 (April). Interpreter for Shi Yongxin, abbot of Shaolin Monastery, China, during his visit and lecture at the University of California, Berkeley.

7.     2009 (summer). Interpreter for Western undergraduate and graduate students for the Woodenfish Buddhist Studies Program during visits to Chinese Buddhist and Daoist sites.