Robert Thurman is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, Co-Founder and President of Tibet House US, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan civilization, and he is President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies.  He is the first American to have been ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He has studied Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism for almost fifty years as a personal student of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He has written both scholarly and popular books, and lectures around the world on Buddhism, Asian history, and critical philosophy.