David Germano

Gibson Hall Room 361

Office Hours

By appointment only

Education

• BA, University of Notre Dame
• PhD, University of Wisconsin

Research Interests

In addition to teaching in the Department of Religious Studies, where he has advised many doctoral students since 1992, Germano was the founder and director for many years of director at UVA of the Tibet Center, the Contemplative Sciences Center, and SHANTI  (Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts Network of Technological Initiatives). At present he instead focuses his research and community building work outside of UVA as founder and director of Contemplative Futures (contemplativefutures.org, under construction) which explores the past and future of contemplation with research and innovation; one of the leaders of The Something Initiative and its focus on supporting monastic revitalization in Bhutan; and one of the lead figures involves with the Institute of Aliveness, a transdisciplinary research and invention initiative focused on experiences, practices, and knowledge of aliveness. He also is the founder and director of the Tibetan and Himalayan Library (THL, www.thlib.org), one of the world’s largest international initiatives using digital technology to facilitate collaboration in Tibetan Studies across disciplines. His personal research interests are focused on the Nyingma and Bön lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, tantric traditions overall, Buddhist philosophy, Tibetan historical literature and concerns, and contemplation. 

Germano has a deep expertise in the use of digital technology to facilitate innovation in teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences. In the context of THL, he has worked extensively on digital initiatives with geographical data, videos, images, dictionaries, gazetteers, and much more in partnership with scores of scholars from diverse disciplines.  geography, linguistics, history, literary studies, environmental science, film studies, and others. With SHANTI, he built a community-based model for mainstreaming digital technology at UVa so as to enable innovation in teaching, research, publication, and engagement. Germano has also been a leader at building academic collaborations with Tibetan institutions and has facilitated a broad array of exchange programs that have included language instruction, oral traditions documentation, geography, tourism, education, library development and much more. In this context, he has been an advocate of engaged scholarship which actively explores the way in which scholarship impacts on, and empowers, the communities with which universities are involved in complex relationships. From 2012 to 2024, Germano founded and lead UVa’s Contemplative Sciences Center with a focus on reform in educational quarters through integrating contemplation and ideas and practices of flourishing. 

In terms of personal research, outside of the larger collaborative projects, Germano is currently working for Wisdom Publications on a set of works that constitute a comprehensive analysis of the Great Perfection Seminal Heart (rdzogs chen snying thig) tradition from its formation to its full expression in the fourteenth century with the corpus of Longchenpa to later dark retreat traditions. This includes a translation of his major work, The Treasury of Words and Meanings (tshig don mdzod), a historical study, a philosophical study, and a literary study of the tradition. In addition, he has developed an entire theoretical and methodological system for researching Buddhist contemplation called “generative contemplation” to signify its focus on ideas and practices of contemplative fluency that enable creativity and generativity within any given tradition. 

Other Research

Germano, David F. (2000-present, director), The Tibetan and Himalayan Library (www.thlib.org). Within this international project, I am the director and/or facilitator of multiple major collaborative projects involving technology in GIS research, language instructional materials, dictionaries, literary archives, ethnographic research and historical work. This is the largest international initiative in Tibetan Studies involving digital technology, multiple disciplines, and multiple institutions. See there for major Web publications involving Tibetan literature, music, geography, and other subjects. It is also leading efforts at integrating academic work with community services initiatives in Tibet. I am the primary person responsible for the library’s structural design, social networks, and intellectual program, as well as being active in one way or another in almost every major project therein.

Selected Awards and Grants

Germano has been PI for fellowships, grants and gifts totaling roughly thirty million dollars, including grants from the Department of Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, US State Department, Luce Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and many others. 

Selected Publications

• Colaianne, B.A., Hirshberg, M.J., Inkelas, K.K., Greenberg, M.T., Davidson, R.J., Germano, D.F., Dunne, J.D., Roeser, R.W. (2025). “Can the virtual implementation of a college course on human flourishing improve student flourishing during COVID-19? A multi-university study.” Journal of American College Health 2025 April, 73 (4), 1837-1846.
• David Germano with Tashi Dekyid Monet (2025). “Tales of Myself and Snow” (ང་དང་ཁ་བའི་གཏམ་རྒྱུད་). A translation with detailed introduction. Yeshe: A Journal of Tibetan Literature, Arts and Humanities, Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 28-46. https://yeshe.org/wp-content/uploads/4014.pdf
• David Germano (2025). “Transitions in Transitivity: The Complexity of Effort, Effortlessness, and Agency in Tibetan Great Perfection Contemplative Practices.” Entangled Religions vol. 14:4 on Contemplation and Non-doing. https://er.ceres.rub.de/index.php/ER/article/view/12177
• David Germano (2023). “Nalanda.” Published in a special issue of Mindfulness devoted to the famed Buddhist monastery of Nālandā in India in spring 2023. 
• Germano, David (2023). “Divine Creation and Pure Lands in Renaissance Tibet.” In Living Treasure: Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in Honor of Janet Gyatso, editors Holly Gayley and Andrew Quintman. Somerville: Wisdom Publications.
• Hirshberg, M. J., Colaianne, B., Greenberg, M. T., Inkelas, K. K., Davidson, R. J., Germano, D., Dunne, J. D., & Roeser, R.W. (2022). Can the academic experiential study of flourishing improve first-year college students’ health and well-being? A multi-university study. Mindfulness, published online 23 July 2022. https://doi.or/10.1007/s12671-022-01952-1.
• Inkelas, K. K., Colaianne B., Hirshberg, M. J., Greenberg, M. T., Davidson, R., Dunne, J., Germano, D., & Roeser, R. W. (2021). Does variability across three universities in the implementation of a college course on human flourishing affect student outcomes? Journal of American College Health. Published online: 09 July 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2021.19208=956.
• David Germano and Aneel Chima (2020). "Connecting Inner and Outer Well-Being in Social Innovation Education." By David Germano and Aneel Chima. Published in Stanford Social Innovation Review, https://ssir.org/articles/entry/connecting_inner_and_outer_well_being_in_social_innovation_education
• Germano, David (2007). “Re-membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet: Contemporary Tibetan Visionary Movements in the People’s Republic of China.” An abridged version published in Defining Buddhisms: A Reader, edited by Karen Derris and Natalie Gummer in the series “Critical Categories in the Study of Religion,” edited by Russell T. McCutcheon for Equinox Publishing. 
• Germano, David (2007). “The Shifting Terrain of the Tantric Bodies of Buddhas and Buddhists from an Atiyoga Perspective.” In The Pandita and the Siddha: Tibetan Studies in Honour of E. Gene Smith, edited by Ramon Prats. Amnye Machen Institute.
• Germano, David and William S. Waldron (2006). "The Arising of Ālaya: History and Doctrine." In The Buddha’s Way: The Confluence of Buddhist Thought and Contemporary Psychology in the Post-Modern Age, editor D. K. Nauriyal, Routledge Curzon Press.
• Germano, David F. (2005). "Atiyoga/Great Perfection." In Encyclopedia of Religions, Macmillan Reference USA.
• Germano, David F. with Gregory Hillis (2005). "Tibetan Buddhist Meditation." In Encyclopedia of Religions, Macmillan Reference USA.
• Germano, David F. with Gregory Hillis (2005). "Klong chen rab ‘byams pa." In Encyclopedia of Religions, Macmillan Reference USA.
• Germano, David F. (2005). “The History of Funerary rDzogs chen.” In the Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, vol. 1 , www.jiats.org.
• Germano, David F. with Eveline Yang and others. "Tibetan Furniture Making: Traditions and Innovations" (2004): a documentary produced and exhibited at the "Wooden Wonders" exhibition, Pacific Asian Art Museum in Los Angeles, November 2004.
• Germano, David F. and Kevin Trainor, eds (2004). Embodying the Dharma: Buddhist Relic Veneration in Asia. SUNY. This volume of essays on Buddhist relic traditions across Asia is drawn from our four year seminar on the subject in the American Academy of Religions.