Dr Justin McDaniel is the Kahn Endowed Chair of the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a BA in Classics and History from Boston College and his MA, MTS in Religious Studies from Harvard University, and his PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard in 2003. He lived and researched in South and Southeast Asia for many years as a translator, archivist, amulet collector, volunteer teacher, and Buddhist monk. He previously taught at Ohio University, the University of California at Riverside. His research foci include Monastic History, Comparative Asceticism, Religious Contemplative Practice, Pilgrimage, Ritual, Meditation, and manuscript studies. His first book is on the history of Buddhist monastic education in Laos and Thailand, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words (2008). His second book is the Lovelorn Ghost and the Magic Monk (2011). His three most recent books are Architects of Buddhist Leisure (2018), Wayward Distractions: Studies in Buddhism in Southeast Asia (2022) and Cosmologies and Biologies: Siamese Illuminated Buddhist Manuscripts (2024).  He has published nine edited volumes and more than 100 articles and reviews and has given invited lectures in over 30 countries. He has been named a Fulbright, Luce, Rockefeller, NEH, Mellon, and Guggenheim Fellow and won the Benda and Kahin Book Prizes. Recently he was named one of the top ten most innovative professors in America by the Chronicle of Higher Education and his teaching methods have been discussed in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Huffington Post, NBC, and other venues. He is completing a new book called This Will Destroy You: Teaching in the Modern American University.