ABS/HB Program Advisory Committee
Associate Professor Judith Snodgrass
Associate Professor Judith Snodgrass writes, researches and teaches in the areas of Buddhism in the West, Buddhism and Asian modernity, Buddhist nationalism, and Western knowledge of Asia. She is the author of Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West: Orientalism, Occidentalism and the Columbian Exposition (University of North Carolina Press, 2003). Associate Professor Snodgrass was editor of the internationally refereed professional journal Japanese Studies (Taylor and Francis) from 1997 through 2011.
In 1991, Judith was a founding member of TAASA (The Asian Art Society of Australia) and was an active member of the Executive for the first decade of its activities. http://www.taasa.org.au/
Dr Xiang-Yu (Janet) Hou
Janet was trained as a doctor in China and an epidemioligist in Australia. Currently, Janet works as an Associate Professor in epidemiology at Poche Centre for Indigelous Health at the University of Queensland.
Janet graduated with a Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Buddhist Studies and a Postgraduate Certificate in Humanistic Buddhism from Nan Tien Institute (NTI) of Higher Education in NSW. She also worked at NTI as the Academic Dean in 2019-2022. Janet is a qualified Buddhist Chaplain and her practice focus is Humanistic Buddhism. She has been a volunteer teacher in Buddhism as Brisbane Chung Tian Temple since 2015.
Dr Funie Hsu
Funie Hsu/Chhi is Associate Professor of American studies at San Jose State University. She is a transdisciplinary scholar whose research interests include education, Buddhism, and mindfulness. Her experience as a former public elementary school teacher shapes much of her work. Hsu/Chhi is an editorial board member of the Journal of Global Buddhism and is a co-organiser of May We Gather, a collaborative project of commemoration and healing by and for Asian American Buddhists and their spiritual friends.
Venerable Phong
Venerable Phrasamu Phongsak Supawangso (Supprathum) is a Thai Buddhist monk who has followed the Dhammakaya movement for the last two decades, a former assistant abbot of Dhammakaya Temple in Dunedin, New Zealand. Since the abbot of the temple built the large sacred site, the Dhammakaya Cetiya in Thailand, he was a young student at Political Science University who studied Buddhist meditation and worked for World Fellowship Buddhist (WFB)& (WFBY) and Dhammakaya International Society as a renunciant volunteer, a journalist for sixteen years before he become a Buddhist monk who completed a Master’s degree of ABS at Nan Tien Institute and carries out Buddhist research in Oceania region.
Dr Cecile Manikan
Dr. Manikan is a professional trainer and course designer of executive training programs in the field of Transformational Leadership and Management at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and the Ateneo de Manila University Graduate School of Business. Dr. Manikan is a strong advocate of Contemplative Pedagogy and Mindfulness Practice which she learned at NTI and which she is presently introducing to Philippine education and corporate business through her capability-building seminars and corporate training. As an active member of the Communities of Practice at Nan Tien, her interest lies in co-creating global peace and harmony through humanistic projects and affinities as well as inter-religious studies and dialogue.
Dr Mun-Keat Choong
Dr. CHOONG Mun-keat (Wei-keat) studied Chinese and Pāli Buddhism in Malaysia, Taiwan and Sri Lanka, before obtaining his Bachelor of Arts (1990) in Buddhist Studies at Komazawa University (Tokyo), and his Master of Arts in Studies in Religion (1994) and PhD (1999) in the area of Buddhist Studies at University of Queensland. His research interests lie in comparative studies of the Pāli and Chinese versions of the early Buddhist canon (including fragmentary Sanskrit texts). He is also interested in contemporary Buddhism in the West and Asian societies. He taught Buddhism courses at University of Queensland (2001-2), prior to taking up his appointment at UNE (2003).