Founding Director, Modern Tibetan Studies
Columbia University

Robert Barnett is based at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and is an Affiliate Researcher at King’s College, London. He was the Founding Director of Modern Tibetan Studies at Columbia University in New York from 1999 to 2018 and has also taught at Princeton, INALCO (Paris), and IACER (Kathmandu). He founded and ran the Tibet Information Network (TIN), an independent research project on contemporary Tibet in London from 1987 to 1998 and has authored books and edited volumes including Conflicting Memories, with Benno Weiner and Françoise Robin (2019); Tibetan Modernities: Notes from the Field, with Ronald Schwartz (2008); Lhasa: Streets with Memories (2006); and A Poisoned Arrow: The Secret Report of the 10th Panchen Lama (1997). His writing includes studies of Tibetan politics, cinema, television, religious regulations, social management, women politicians, and contemporary exorcism rituals. He runs a number of training programs in Tibet and is a frequent commentator on Tibet and nationality issues in China for the media. He has also worked extensively in circus, television, theatre and film, including Dark Crystal, Yentl, and Return to Oz.