Our editors, transcribers, advisors, digital library team, donors, teachers, and many others are what gives meaning to the Chogyam Trungpa Institute. We are grateful to all these folks for their continuing support!

Advisory Group

Charles Lief

President Naropa University

Charles Lief became president of Naropa University in 2012, He was a student of Naropa’s founder Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche from 1970 and is a teacher in that lineage. He also served as Naropa’s lawyer and chair of the board of trustees. Naropa’s mission is to create a more just world by nurturing student insight and awareness, courage and compassion. It is the higher education leader in integrating the contemplative tools of mindfulness and compassion with academic study and service learning. He was the founding president of the Greyston Foundation which provided housing, health care, and employment to thousands of homeless, formerly incarcerated, mentally ill and low-income people in the Northeast. He has been elected to many other boards including current service as chair of the Lions Roar Foundation.

Carolyn Rose Gimian

Executive Director, CTI

Carolyn Rose Gimian is a book editor, an archivist, a writer, and a teacher of meditation, mindfulness and Buddhism. She is the editor of The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action and many other volumes of his work. Carolyn is the Executive Director of the Chogyam Trungpa Institute at Naropa University.

Diana J. Mukpo

Diana Mukpo, the wife of the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche,  was born Diana Judith Pybus in 1953 in England. She first saw Chogyam Trungpa at a Free Tibet rally in London. Within a year, she and the Trungpa Rinpoche met and fell in love. They were married on January 3, 1970. A few months later, they left England for North America. They had been married seventeen years when Rinpoche died in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1987. 

Diana has had a lifelong passion for horsemanship. She is among a handful of women who ever trained in dressage at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Today, she continues to train and compete dressage horses at the international level and to teach the discipline of dressage to many students. 

In addition to pursuing her own career and raising their five children, Diana Mukpo often accompanied the Vidyadhara when he travelled and taught with him at some seminars and retreats. She is the author of Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa. Since Rinpoche’s death, Diana has taught throughout North America and in Europe, presenting both her personal experiences with the Trungpa Rinpoche as well as sharing her knowledge of the Shambhala and Buddhist teachings.

Judy Lief

Judy Lief

Judy Lief is a Buddhist teacher, author, and retreat leader. who trained under the Tibetan meditation master, Ven. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She has been offering teachings, workshops, and retreats for over 40 years, and she continues to teach throughout the world. Judy is known for offering insights and practices stemming from the Buddhist tradition as a support for ordinary people facing the difficulties and challenges of modern life. Judy serves as the head teacher for the annual Profound Treasury Retreats, held each year in Maine and in Colorado. In addition to regular teaching, Judy is a senior editor of Chögyam Trungpa’s work, including the three-volume Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma. Judy regularly contributes articles for publications such as The Lion’s Roar, and she is  the author of Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality. Her podcast, Dharma Glimpses, has subscribers in over ten countries.

Jane Carpenter Cohn

Jane Carpenter Cohn

Jane Carpenter Cohn, MA, is an Associate Professor and Director of the Naropa Center for Bhutan Partnerships at Naropa University. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Buddhism, Buddhist Psychology, Contemplative Education and the Arts. She works collaboratively with the Royal University of Bhutan faculty in the development of the Bhutan Study Abroad Program, curricular design and implementation of Counseling Programs. As a contemplative artist practitioner and teacher she specializes in Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. Jane is a Komon in the Sogetsu School of Ikebana.

Carla Marie Burns

Carla Burns is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Naropa University, where she leads the MA Contemplative Psychotherapy residential retreat programs. She also consults for the Center for the Advancement of Contemplative Education, designing and facilitating programs and trainings, and contributes to Naropa’s Compassion Initiative. Specializing in the integration of corporeal, elemental, and spatial knowledge, her work explores how these practices can enhance everyday awareness. Carla’s research and teaching focus on embodied practices that connect personal and collective liberation, aiming to transform expansive views of enlightenment into practical, everyday freedom.

Hazel Bercholz

Hazel Bercholz

Hazel Bercholz was an early student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, having met him in the Bay Area in 1970. In her work as a book designer with Shambhala Publications (which her husband started in 1969), she worked directly with Rinpoche on the design of several of his books. And, she continued this work on his major books until her retirement in 2019.

Hazel has taught Buddhist classes and directed Shambhala Training programs over the years. Now, living once again in Boulder, she teaches classes with Rime Society and on Ocean.

Mitchell M. Levy, MD MCCM FCCP

Mitchell M. Levy MD is Chief, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University. He is also Systemwide Director of Critical Care Medicine at the Lifespan Health System in Providence, Rhode Island. Dr. Levy is Past-President of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (2009). Dr. Levy’s current research interests include translational research in sepsis, and end-of-life care in the ICU. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Dr. Levy is very active in the field of quality and safety. Dr. Levy has been a Shambhala Buddhist practitioner for the past 50 years.

Ashoka Mukpo

Ashoka Mukpo

Ashoka Mukpo is a writer and journalist currently living in Berlin, Germany. He is the adopted son of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who taught him to cheer up, be kind, and break the rules sometimes.

Jim Wilton

Jim Wilton is a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, and Kilung Rinpoche. He is a retired lawyer living in Newton, Massachusetts with his wife, Erika, a retired rock & roll singer who is Vajrayogini.

The Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library

Carolyn Rose Gimian

Executive Director

Carolyn Rose Gimian is a book editor, an archivist, a writer, and a teacher of meditation, mindfulness and Buddhism. She is the editor of The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action and many other volumes of his work. Carolyn is the Executive Director of the Chogyam Trungpa Institute at Naropa University.

Lynn Friedman

Lynn Friedman

Digital Library Director

Lynn is one of the primary architects and builders of the library’s collection database and file management system, and oversees the process and technology standards for the Library.  Lynn has been a dharma practitioner since meeting Trungpa Rinpoche in 1974, and had a long career as a software developer, architect, and project manager before “retiring” and joining this project.

Warner Dick

Warner Dick

Media Manager

Warner Dick manages the digital media assets for the Library. He became a student of the buddhadharma at the New York Shambhala Center in the early 1990s while a graduate student in Psychology at NYU. He holds a B.F.A from the Rhode Island School of Design. Warner has worked in a technical capacity in photography, film and theater production. Warner relishes this opportunity to combine his interests in helping launch the Digital Library. He lives in Bedford, NY, and teaches at the Westchester Meditation Center.

Leandra Ziegler

Leandra Ziegler

Managing Editor and Co-Lead Writer

Leandra Ziegler manages and writes for the “Explore” section of the library: original content that gives context and insight into the teachings. Born to students of Trungpa Rinpoche, Leandra grew up in Nova Scotia, where she currently lives. She holds a  B.A. in English and Dance, and has worked as a professional modern dancer and an ESL teacher, and is a freelance magazine editor. Leandra is thrilled to be contributing to making these invaluable teachings accessible to so many people.

Anne Seidlitz

Co-Lead Writer

Anne writes and edits copy for the Library. Anne has worked as a writer in documentary film and arts and nonprofit development for many years. Her most recent film project, Becoming Frederick Douglass, premiered nationally on PBS in October of 2022.

Blaire Martin

Customer Support

Blaire Martin joined the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library team as the customer support specialist in 2022. The variety of questions and personal stories library users send her way enrich her experience beyond expectations. She came in contact with Chogyam Trungpa’s teachings in 2013 and is honored to be a part of an amazing team dedicated to ensuring the continuation of his legacy.

Emily Waters

Social Media and Newsletter

Emily manages social media and designs the newsletter for the Digital Library. She has a dual B.A. in Buddhist Studies and Studio Art, as well as a degree in Design. Bringing together dharma and visual storytelling is a deep and growing passion, and it is an honor to engage with this work with CTI and the Digital Library. Emily first connected with Chögyam Trungpa’s teachings in 2019 while living in Westchester, New York. She currently resides in Auckland, NZ with her husband and two young children.

JP Glutting

Captioning and Data Management

JP has been a member of the Mahasangha for over a decade. He has previously worked in pandemic disease modeling, computational biology and geospatial data analysis.

John Perkins

John Perkins

Digital Library Director Emeritus

John’s first digital library project, in 1985, unified the heritage conservation literature and holdings of major libraries in five countries. John is an authority on standards development and knowledge sharing in museums and archives.  He was the Co-Director of the Shambhala Archives from 1997-2000. John was a consultant to and the Director of the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library from 2018 to 2023, leading the initial visioning, design, build and launch of the library.

CTR Transcription Team

Warner Dick

Warner Dick

Transcription Team Lead

Lynn Friedman

Lynn Friedman

Transcription Project Director

Blaire Martin

Transcription Coordinator

Ruth Veleta

Copy Editor

Anne Seidlitz

Copy Editor

Ella Milligan

Copy Editor

Leandra Ziegler

Leandra Ziegler

Copy Editor

Jessyca Goldstein

Transcriber

Julia McKaig

Transcriber, Copy Editor

Allyssa San Valentin

Transcriber

Eiríkur Baldursson

Transcriber

Emily Waters

Transcriber

JP Glutting

Transcriber

ODT Editors

Harry Einhorn

Alicia Fordham

Diana Goetsch

Cassell Gross

Diana Janowitz

Trudee Klautky

Travis May

Ella Milligan

Carla Marie Burns

Carla Marie Burns

Daniel Nguyen

Emma Sartwell

Jade Weston

Jonathan V. Daniel

Inactive

Nate Speare

Inactive