Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - Institute of Asian and African Studies

Areas of Teaching and Research:
 

• Complementary Medicine - Tibetan Medicine practice in Europe and Asia
• Anthropology of Religion, Medical Anthropology, Oral History in Tibetan societies of China, in the Himalaya and exile
• Tibetan Medicine, Western Medicine, local healing traditions
• Chinese Public Health and minority medicine
• Globalisation of traditional Asian medicine
• Ethnographic Film

Teaching:
 

• Blockseminar "What is medicine? Asian and European Knowledge Practices" Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, China Center (WS 2017/18)
• Blockseminar „Soundings in Asian Medicine - Principles, Challenges and Transformations” Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, China Zentrum  (SS 2017)
• University of Westminster London, School of Life Sciences (July 2013)
• European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department for Transcultural Health Sciences (January 2013)
• University of Toronto, Department of Religious Studies (Jan-Apr 2011)
• Universität Bern, Religious Studies Seminar (HS 2009/10)
• Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Central Asian Seminar (SS 2007; WS 2006/7; WS 2005/6; WS 2004/05; SS 2004; SS 2003)
• Universität Heidelberg, SAI, Dept. of Ethnology (SS 2006, WS 2001/2)
• Victoria University Wellington (New Zealand), Religious Studies and Asian Studies Program (1999-2002)
• Freie Universität Berlin, Institute for Ethnology (SS 1998)

Current research / fieldwork:
 

• Globalisation of Tibetan Medicine, Wellcome Trust Research Project "Beyond Tradition: Ways of Knowing and Styles of Practice in East Asian Medicines 1000 to the Present"
• (Prof. Volker Scheid), East Medicine, School of Life Sciences, University of Westminster London - Subproject 08.2012 - 07.2015
• Ritual Healers and Public Health in Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh (DFG Pilot Project 2011/12)
• Family Planning among Tibetans in China (Prof. Ingeborg Baldauf; SFB 640; DFG 2004-2008)
• Medicine, religion and healing in Tibetan and Tibetanized communities in China and the Himalaya (since 2006)
• Bon lineage doctors and local healers in Tibet (TAR), and Qinghai (fieldwork in 2002/3, 2005-2007)
• Ritual masked dances and the revival of Tibetan Bon religion (fieldwork in India and China in 1995-6, 2002, 2010 Nafög; Analysis of Film)

Organisation of International Panels/Conferences:
 

• International workshop: 'Creating a Digital Knowledge Base on Himalayan Materia Medica’; Co-organisation with Dr Sienna Craig; ICTAM IX (International Conference on Traditional Asian Medicine), University Kiel (Aug. 6 - 12, 2017)
• International Workshop 'Developing an Interdisciplinary and Multilingual Digital Knowledge Base on Tibetan Medical Formulas with a Focus on Stress-related (rlung) Disorders' (May 8-10, 2015), funded by  SMALL RESEARCH GRANT BRITISH ACADEMY / LEVERHULME (SG140387), co-funded with SINO-BRITISH FELLOWSHIP TRUST, IASTAM seed funding, EASTmedicine Research Group, Westminster University London
• International Panel ‘Cultural Concepts and Local Practices of Efficacy and Safety: Production, Circulation and Prescription of Asian Pharmaceuticals’, ICTAM XIII, Korea; co-organisation with Dr. Lena Springer, (ICTAM XIII), 09-13.09.2013; Foundation of Sowa Rigpa Group at IASTAM
• International Conference Woman as Visionaries, Healers and Poisoners- Autonomous Female Religious Specialists in Tibet, the Himalayas and Inner Asia, Central Asian Seminar, HU, 03.-05.05.2013 (DFG application)
• Panel Health, Medicine and Modernity, 11th Seminar of the IATS (International Association of Tibetan Studies), Bonn, September 2006; funded by Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung
• Workshop Figurations of Modernity: Global and Local Representations of Socio-cultural Change in Comparative Perspective, SFB 640, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 07/08.04.2006
• Panel Chair Central Asia im Internationalen Workshop The Social Dimensions of Understanding Illness and Healing: Islamic Societies from Africa to Central Asia, Orientwissenschaftliches Zentrum, Martin-Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 31st March-1st April 2006
• Panel Cross-cultural Transactions and the Globalisation of Traditional Asian Medicine; internationale Konferenz zu "Cross-cultural Management and Training in a Global Economy", Education Forum for Asia, Beijing, PRC, 16.10.2005
• International Conference Transcultural Interface and Local Implementations of Asian and Western Medical Systems: Transfer, Integration and Transformation between Asia and Europe, Central Asian Seminar, Prof. Dr. Ingeborg Baldauf, Humboldt University Berlin, 11/12.02.2005; funded by Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung
• Panel New Research on Tibetan Medicine at the 10th Seminar of the IATS conference, Oxford, 6.-12. Sept. 2003, partly funded by The Wellcome Trust for the History of Medicine, London
  
   

Curriculum Vitae:
 

• (part-time) LECTURER at China Center, Kiel University, Germany, on Asian Medical Systems, Global and Public Health in Asia and Europe
• 2016-2018 Doctoral supervision, Institute of Health and Society, Department of Community Medicine and Global Health, University Oslo08.
• 2012 - 07.2015 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 'Globalisation of Tibetan Medicine' (subproject), Wellcome Trust Research Project "Beyond Tradition: Ways of Knowing and Styles of Practice in East Asian Medicines 1000 to the Present" (Prof. Volker Scheid), East Medicine, School of Life Sciences, University of Westminster London
• 2011 DAAD short-term lectureship, guest lecturer at the Department for Religious Studies, University of Toronto, Kanada
• 2009/10 Lecturer at the Religious Studies Seminar, Universität Bern, Switzerland
• 2008/9 Research Fellow at the Horst-Görtz-Institute for the Theory, History and Ethics of Chinese Lifesciences, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin
• 2004 - 2008: Research Fellow at the SFB 640 HU Berlin Representations of Social Order and Change, research project 'Socialist Campaigns in Central Asia'/ Tibet, Prof. Dr. Ingeborg Baldauf; topic: Experiences of Family Planning among Tibetans in Post-Mao China (ethnographic and medical anthropological research) WS 2001/2 Assistant/ Lecturer at the Dept. of Ethnology, Prof.Dr. William Sax, South Asia Institute Universität Heidelberg
• 2001 Dr. phil. (summa cum laude), Institute for Ethnology, Freie Universität Berlin 1995-2001 Doctoral Student at the Institute for Ethnology, Freie Universität Berlin; topic: Monastic Revival and Ritual Practice in a Bonpo Community of Post-Mao China
• 1991 Birth of my daughter Nima
• 1991 Magister Artium (first class honours), Institute for Ethnology, Freie universität Berlin
• 1985-1991 Study in Ethnology, History of Indian Art, Ancient Meso and South American Cultures, Freie Universität Berlin
• 1982-1984 Study in Comparative Literature, Political Sciences, Spanish, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken