Judith Simmer-Brown, PhD

Judith Simmer-Brown is Professor Emeritx of Religious Studies at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where she has been in the faculty since 1978. She has practiced Tibetan Buddhism for almost 50 years and is an Acharya (senior dharma teacher) of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage of Sakyong Mipham, Rinpoche and Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, Naropa’s founder. She serves on the steering committee of the American Academy of Religion’s Contemplative Studies Group. Dr. Simmer-Brown lectures and publishes on Tibetan Buddhism, American Buddhism, women and Buddhism, interreligious dialogue, and contemplative studies. Her books are Dakini’s Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism (Shambhala) and, with Fran Grace, an edited collection of articles called Meditation and the Classroom: Contemplative Pedagogy for Religious Studies (Religious Studies Series, State University of New York Press). She is married to Richard Brown, a Naropa University emeritx professor, and has two adult children and three grandchildren.