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Khenpo Konchok Tamphel

Khenpo Konchok Tamphel was born in Ladakh, India. In 1997, he received Acharya (Master’s degree) in Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan Literature from Drikung Kagyu Institute, Dehradun, India. He has been working as interpreter for H.H Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang and H.E Garchen Rinpoche since 2001. In 2004, he received the Khenpo degree (Doctorate) in Buddhist philosophy from D.K.I.
Since 2012, he has been heading the Ratnasri Translation Group for 84000 Dharma Translation. Since 2013, he has been teaching and assisting on research projects at the University of Vienna.

Khenpo Sherab

Khenpo K. Sherab is a (2005 batch) graduate student from Kagyu College, Center for Higher Buddhist Studies, Dehradun, India. He was born in Ladakh and entered Lamayuru monastery at the age of 12. He moved to Drikung Kagyu Jangchubling Monastic College in  year 1995 and studied major Buddhist sciences including Ten-nying and Gongchig and Tibetan/Bhoti literature under many teachers. In year 2009, H.H. Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche awarded him with Khenpo's degree. Presently, he serves as research officer at Songtsen Library, Dehradun, India.

Acarya Nyima

From 1989 to 2000 Nyima studied Tibetan, Chinese, and other subjects at a secondary school and from 2002 to 2008, he received a general Buddhist education at the Drikung Katshal monstery in Tibet. After that, he attended Kagyu College in Dehradun and completed his studies of the five great scriptures with an Acarya degree in 2017. Since 2015, he also has been teaching at the Kagyu College. Nyima speaks Tibetan, Chinese, and a little English. Since 2017 he has been part of the Vikramalashila translation project in Germany and is currently working on a Chinese translation of Khenpo Kunpal’s Gongchig commentary (单明一意理精华之宝藏).

Yeshe Metog

Könchog Yeshe Metog studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan language from 2006 to 2013 in India, initially attending Sarah College and the Thosamling Institute near Dharamsala and later Kagyu College in Dehradun. After her return to Germany, she continued to work on translations of various texts from the Drikung Kagyu tradition. Her current translation projects include Schatz der Kernpunkte aus Schriften und Logik, Khenpo Kunpal’s commentary on the Gongcig; Phagmodrupa’s Bodhicaryavatara, and Ein Weg zu innerem Frieden, teachings of Garchen Rinpoche on the 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva. Yeshe Metog speaks German, English, and Tibetan.

Konchok Tenzin

Konchok Tenzin (Mark Riege), born 1960 in Germany, moved to the US in 1986 after receiving a Masters degree in Education. Having a varied work experience (building silver flutes, programming medical software), he became a student of Garchen Rinpoche in 1997 and started learning Tibetan in Darjeeling in 2008. Since 2013, he has been a participant of Khenchen Nyima Gyaltsen's translation project in Dehradun, translating texts from Jigten Sumgön and Phagmodrupa under his direction. Published books of his translations include The Central Thoughtsof Jigten Sumgön's Single Intention(Ohio 2014), Manual of Ghantapa’s Five Deity Chakrasamvara(Dehradun 2015), The Inexhaustible Source of Nectar(Jigten Sumgön's Mountain Dharma, Munich 2017).

Dr. Katrin Querl

Katrin Querl is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Indology and Central Asian Studies at Leipzig University, Germany. From 2011 to 2017, she studied Buddhist philosophy at the Kagyu College in Dehradun, India, where she completed the first six years of the traditional monastic curriculum. Katrin’s PhD thesis dealt with the presentation of the three wheels of Dharma in the works of Jikten Sumgön, the founder of the Drikung Kagyu tradition. In addition to her academic research, she collaborates with several translation projects, such as the Vikramashila Translation Project, the Rinchenpal Translation Project, and the Buddhist Translation Studies project (BTS) at the University of Vienna.

Liu Zhe An

Liu Zhe An, or Konchok Phuntsok, was born in Taiwan in 1974 and took refuge in 1991. He currently lives in Beijing, China and holds GaKaWa Tibetan center for teaching Tibetan and translating scriptures from Tibetan to Chinese.

Meghan Howard

Meghan Howard met the Drikung Kagyu lineage as a small child and is currently a PhD candidate in Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studies Buddhism on the Silk Road. She translates from Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Classical Chinese, and is a Tibetan interpreter with over fifteen years of experience. As a translator, her areas of interest include devotional texts, scripture, and history. She aspires to help make the riches of Buddhist literature accessible to practitioners around the world. Meghan has an undergraduate degree in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University.

Solvej Hyveled Nielsen

Solvej Hyveled Nielsen was born in Denmark in 1987. She mostly translates Tibetan-English (written and oral). Her mother tongue is Danish, and she understands a little bit of German.
Solvej has a B.A. in Buddhist Studies with Himalayan Languages from Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Kathmandu University. She also has a B.A. and M.A. in Tibetology from Copenhagen University.
She studied Drikung texts and Tibetan history with Dr. Jan-Ulrich Sobisch and also worked with him on a project about Tibetan divination. Since 2015 she has spent her summers with Khenchen Nyima Gyaltsen and the Vikramashila Translation group at the Milarepa Center, Schneverdingen.

Sonam Spitz

Sonam Spitz was born in 1984 in Germany. From 2006 - 09 he studied at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu/Nepal and graduated with a BA degree in Buddhist Studies with Himalayan Language. From 2009 he studied Classical Indology at the university of Hamburg/Germany and graduated there with another BA in 2012 and a MA in 2015. Since 2009 he is also working as an interpreter for Tibetan speaking Buddhist teachers and as translator of written texts of the Drikung Kagyu lineage. Sonam Spitz speaks German, English and Tibetan and works to a considerable extend with Sanskrit sources. From 2016-17 he was employed as a lecturer for Tibetan and Sanskrit at the university of Copenhagen. Since 2015 he participates in the Vikramashila Translation Commitee under the guidance of Khenchen Nyima Gyaltsen.

Tracy Stilerman

Tracy Stilerman began studying the Tibetan language in 2000. She received her B.A. in Tibetan studies from Columbia University in 2007 where she continued her study of Tibetan and began learning Chinese. Upon graduation, she spent one year studying Chinese at Lanzhou University. She then spent several years doing full-time freelance translation and interpretation for Drikung teachers, traveling widely in the U.S. and Tibet. Currently a PhD candidate at Columbia University, she is working on completing a dissertation on the history of Tibetan literature about Buddhist places. She also translates for 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

Virginia Blum

Virginia Blum was born in 1977 in the United States. She has a BA in Humanities from Prescott College in Arizona and started practicing Buddhism in 1999. She began studying Tibetan in 2005 with the Tibetan Summer Language Intensive at the University of Virginia and the following year with the Intermediate Tibetan Language Intensive program at Rangjung Yeshe in Kathmandu, Nepal. From 2006 to 2008 she participated in the Drikung Kagyu Translation Program sponsored by the Tara Foundation at Songsten Library in Dehradun, under the guidance of Khenchen Nyima Gyaltsen and has participated as a guest student in advanced classical Tibetan courses at Columbia University taught by Dr. Robert Thurman and Dr. Lozang Jamspal. She has been working as a Tibetan translator and interpreter since 2008 and speaks English, Tibetan and Spanish.

Vita Teivane

Vita Teivane is from Latvia, in 2009-2013 studied at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal, where obtained BA degree in Buddhist studies with Himalayan languages. From 2014 till 2018 participated in Drikung Kagyu translation project in Dehradun, India, and since 2015 is a member of Vikramashila translation project in Schneverdingen, Milarepa retreat center, Germany. Translates from Tibetan into Russian, English and Latvian.