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Lobsang Tenzin Negi (legal name Satya Dev Negi)Teaching Professor, Department of Religion. Executive Director, Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics

Lobsang Tenzin Negi is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics at Emory University, formerly the Emory-Tibet Partnership. Prof. Negi is also a Teaching Professor in Emory University's Department of Religion and the founder and spiritual director of Drepung Loseling Monastery, Inc., in Atlanta, GA.

Over the past two decades, Prof. Negi has been a pioneer of compassion training programs for adults and children and he has contributed to the development and burgeoning of compassion science through his research initiatives and collaborations.

Through his center, Prof. Negi has developed and now oversees three programs, which are dedicated to expanding compassion and engaging in research. In 2004, Prof. Negi developed CBCT® (Cognitively-Based Compassion Training), a secularized contemplative program based on Tibetan Buddhist mind training practices that deliberately and systematically works to cultivate compassion. He also oversees SEE Learning™ (Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning), a program that develops and implements curricula for kindergarten through university level education for the education of heart and mind. The third program of the center is the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, a program he developed, at the invitation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to develop and implement a comprehensive modern science curriculum specifically for Tibetan monastics.

Prof. Negi was born in Kinnaur, a remote Himalayan region adjoining Tibet. A former monk of 27 years, he began his monastic training at The Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamasala, India and continued his education at Drepung Loseling Monastery in south India, where in 1994 he received the Geshe Lharampa degree. Prof. Negi completed his Ph.D. at Emory University in 1999; his interdisciplinary dissertation centered on traditional Buddhist and contemporary Western approaches to emotions and their impact on wellness. His current research focuses on the complementarity of modern science and contemplative practice.

Education

  • PhD, Emory University, 1999
  • Geshe Lharam, Drepung Loseling Monastic University, 1994
  • MA, Institute for Buddhist Dialectics, 1984

Research and Teaching

  • Relationship between mental / emotional state and physical / social well-being
  • Effects of compassion and mindfulness meditation
  • The impact of introducing modern science into the Tibetan Buddhis monastic curriculum
  • Development K-12 education curricula addressing Social, Emotional, and Ethical Learning

Websites