Background
Undergraduate studies in Social Anthropology, History, and the Study of Religions at the universities of Bergen and Oslo. Magister Artium thesis: "Tibetan Buddhist Nuns; History, Cultural Norms and Social Reality" (published by the Norwegian University Press in 1989); Doctor philos. thesis: "The Life on Jetsun Lochen Rinpoche (1865-1951) as Told in Her Autobiography," (1999). Associate Professor at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages from 2003, Professor from 2012. Chair of the Network for University Cooperation Tibet-Norway 2003-2010. President of the International Association for Tibetan Studies 2019-2023.
In addition to Norwegian students, I have tutored sixteen M.phil. students from Tibetan areas in China, Bhutan and Mongolia in the Study of Religions/Tibetan Studies -- and I have co-supervised several other Tibetan M.phil. students. Nine of my Tibetan students have proceeded with PhD studies in Norway (Oslo), England (Oxford and SOAS), Germany and Minorities Universities in China. For the PhD degree at the University of Oslo, I have tutored seven candidates in the Study of Religions/Tibetan Studies, five of them from areas on the Tibetan plateau.
The Network for University-Cooperation Tibet-Norway and the Quota Program have provided scholarships to over one hundred Tibetans studying in different fields in Norwegian universities. Both programs have been financed by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD).
In 2016 I convened the 14th International Seminar of Tibetan Studies (IATS) at the University of Bergen, in cooperation with co-ordinator Astrid Hovden, Associate Professor, UiT The Arctic University of Norway and a group of researchers from UiO and UiB.
Teaching and tutoring
- Study of Religion
- Religion and climate
- Buddhist modernities
- Tibet's culture and religion
- Buddhism in Tibet, the Himalayas and Mongolia
- Gender and religion
- Localization of religion and religious change
- Anthropology of religion
- Anthropology of Buddhism
- Fieldwork methodology
- Indian religions (Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism)
Special fields
- Asian religious festivals
- Religion and climate in Himalaya
- The construction of religious landscapes
- Buddhism in Tibet, the Himalayas and Mongolia
- Tibetan monastic history
- The revitalization of Buddhism in Mongolia
- The religious biographical tradition in Tibet
- Gender and religion
- Localization of religion and religious change
- Anthropology of religion
- Buddhist and Tibetan female religious specialists: nuns and yoginis
- Pilgrimage in Tibet and the Himalayas
- Indian religions (Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism)