Gregory Sharkey SJ is a member of Jesuit Secretariat for Ecumenism and Interreligious Relations, and consigliere to Father General for Buddhism. A member of the USA Northeast Province (originally New England), he has spent much of his working life as a Jesuit in Nepal, where he first went as a novice in 1979.
Greg is professor of Himalayan Religions at the Kathmandu University Centre for Buddhist Studies at Rangjung Yeshs Institute, through which he has formed close ties with many senior lamas in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He is also research professor of comparative theology & director of the Boston College Nepal Program. From 2004 to 2013 he was an advisor to the office of the (late) Supreme Patriarch of Thailand.
In 2012, Greg founded Desideri House, a center for interreligious learning and dialogue. Named in honor of the Italian Jesuit who was the first westerner to study Buddhism in depth and to master the Tibetan language, Desideri House runs many programs each year for priests, religious and laity, including students from Jesuit institution in America, Europe and Australia.
In addition to his studies for ordination, Greg did an MPhil in Sanskrit and a DPhil in Oriental Studies at Oxford University. His special area of research is the Buddhism of Nepal, especially the form practiced by Kathmandu Valley’s indigenous people -- the Newars. He is an expert on Buddhist ritual, Sanskrit & vernacular hymns, and Himalayan Buddhist languages. In more recent years he has expanded his study to include the Buddhist traditions of the peoples of Nepal’s middle hills.
Greg is a senior fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and Steward of the Oxford University Centre for Buddhist Studies. From 2002 until its closure in 2009, he directed the Jesuit Research Centre in Kathmandu. He was a commission member of the United States Fulbright Foundation from 2005 to 2009, and he has been a lecturer and professor in California, Thailand, Singapore, India, Taiwan, and Tibet.
Address: Desideri House, Boudha Pipalbot, Kathmandu, Nepal
Mail: c/o CBS, GPO Box 21277, Kathmandu, Nepal
Email: greg.sharkey@ryi.org
URL: www.desiderihouse.org