Robert Thurman
Robert Thurman was born in New York City in 1941 and received a doctorate in Buddhist studies from Harvard in 1972. This came after marriage as an undergraduate, the birth of a daughter, the loss of an eye, a divorce, and a pilgrimage to India in 1962. He was the first American to take Tibetan Buddhist monk vows in 1964. In 1966, he renounced his vows, remarried, and returned to Harvard for PhD studies. After graduation, Thurman taught at Amherst College, where he founded the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, until 1988 when he joined Columbia University’s religion department. He remains there as the Jey Tsong Kapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies. At the request of the Dalai Lama, his close friend, Thurman co-founded Tibet House to preserve Tibetan culture in exile, in 1987, and the Menla Mountain Retreat and Conference Center, a Tibetan healing arts facility, in 2001. He has written many books on Tibetan Buddhism and has been named as one of the 25 most influential Americans by Time magazine. He and his second wife, Nena von Schlebrügge, live in New York, where they raised four children, including actress Uma Thurman.
