Religion

“Religious Innovation in the Pilgrimage Industry: Hindu bodhisattva worship and Tamil Buddhistness,” in Multi-Religiosity in Contemporary Sri Lanka: Innovation, Shared Spaces, Contestation, 113-125. New York: Routledge, 2022.

“Merchants, Maidens, and Mohammedans: A History of Muslim Stereotypes in Sinhala Literature of Sri Lanka,” The Journal
of Asian Studies, 81 (2022): 523-540.

“On an Unfamiliar Island: A Sri Lankanist Review of Banishment and Belonging,” The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities
43, No. 1 (2022): 87-100.

“Coronavirus and Ill-fated Crowns: Buddhist Lessons in Pandemics and Politics,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 28 (2021): 121-
166.

“The Apotheosis of Emptiness: God Suniyan and the Soteriological Necessity of Negativity in Sinhala Buddhism,” in The
Meaning and Power of Negativity, 343-61. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021.

“Making Lanka the Tamil Way: A Temple History at the Crossroads of Landscapes and Watersheds,” South Asian History and
Culture 11, No. 3 (2020): 254-76.

“No Sympathy for the Devils: A Colonial Polemic Against Yakṣa Healing Rituals (1851),” in Buddhism and Medicine: Modern
and Contemporary Voices, 45-51. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020.

“A Requiem in Many Movements: Obeyesekere’s Reordered Opus of the Last Sri Lankan King,” The Sri Lanka Journal of the
Humanities 42, No. 1&2 (2018): 105-118.

“Mysteries of the Universe: The Tamil Muslim Intellectualism of M.C. Siddi Lebbe,” South Asia: Journal of South Asia
Studies 41, No. 1 (2018): 51-68. (w/ Merin Shobhana Xavier)

“Farming Songs from the Poet King: Translation and Explication of a Sinhala Janakavi Work,” The Sri Lanka Journal of the
Humanities 41, No. 1&2 (2017): 64-117.

“The Spacing of Pilgrimage: Two Journeys to Sri Pada in Sinhala Verse,” SAGAR: A South Asia Research Journal 25 (2017):
96-133.

“No Self or Ourselves? Wittgenstein and Language Games of Selfhood in a Sinhala Buddhist Form of Life,” in Self or NoSelf?, 195-210. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 2017.

“The Sacred Second: Religious Moments in a Colombo Marketplace,” Culture and Religion 17, No.2. (2016): 162-182.

“Fluid Minds: Being a Buddhist the Shambhalian Way,” Buddhist Studies Review 31, No. 2. (2014): 273-91.

Lecturer, Fall 2021-Present — LAKE FOREST COLLEGE, Lake Forest, IL
Religious Perspectives on the Environment, Buddhism & Social Activism, Demonology, Religion & Popular Culture

Lecturer, Fall 2020-Present — LOYOLA UNIVERSITY, Chicago, IL
Introduction to Religious Studies, Buddhism

Lecturer, Fall 2019-Spring 2020 — COLGATE UNIVERSITY, Hamilton, NY
Challenges of Modernity core course, World Religions

Adjunct Professor, Spring 2019 — LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY, Baton Rouge, LA
World Religions

Adjunct Professor, Fall 2018-Spring 2019 — LOYOLA UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, LA
Varieties of Hindu Traditions, Buddhism across Asia

Teaching Assistant, January 2014 – May 2015 — DUKE UNIVERSITY, Durham, NC
Assisted “Religion & Culture in Korea,” “Introduction to Hinduism,” and “Muslim Philosophy and Theology”

Environmental Science Instructor, June-July 2012 — FENWICK HIGH SCHOOL, Oak Park, IL
Taught intensive summer-school Environmental Science course (five hours/day; eight weeks; inclusive of lab work)

Educational Assistant, September 2009-June 2010 — BEACON PREPARATORY SCHOOL, Bloomington, MN
Worked in a sixth-grade classroom to assist students with Special Education needs to ensure comprehension

Exchange Fellow, September 2008-June 2009 — MACAU UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, China
Instructor for Spoken English courses

Magis Teaching Award Runner-Up, awarded for part-time instructors by the Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy at Loyola University Chicago, April 2023.
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute Grant, awarded to attend the summer institute Colonial Experiences and their Legacies in Southeast Asia, at the East-West Center in Honolulu, HI, June 10 – July 5, 2019.
American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies Curriculum Development Grant, awarded in 2018 for building a teaching module about the multi-religious pilgrimage site of Adam’s Peak, for use in college courses on religion. Module available at: https://www.aisls.org/resources/teaching-about-sri-lanka/teaching-about-adams-peak/
Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, awarded in 2017 for dissertation completion through the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, for research addressing ethical and religious values.
Udo Keller Stiftung Forum Humanum Grant, awarded twice for selection to the 2015 and 2017 Claremont Conference in the Philosophy of Religion.
Fulbright Research Grant (Sri Lanka), awarded funding for 2015-2016 academic year to conduct ethnographic and archival field research on the pilgrimage site of Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka.
Kearns Summer Research Fellowship, awarded grant five times by Duke University for Sinhala language study in Sri Lanka and archival research during summers 2013-2017.
Foreign Language Area Study (FLAS) Scholarship, awarded tuition and stipend for Summers 2011 and 2015 Sinhala language study at the South Asian Summer Language Institute hosted by University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Harvard Divinity School, awarded full-tuition scholarship.
Grinnell Corps Fellowship, awarded stipend to teach English in Macau, Spring 2008
Phi Beta Kappa, Honors Society, inducted into Grinnell College chapter in Spring 2008

American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies, Seminar Series: New Research in Sri Lankan History, March 11, 2022
“Healing Buddhist Knowledge from Palm Leaves to Print: Exorcising Yakṣas from Sinhala Literary Reproduction”

Tulane University, Asian Studies Seminar, February 12, 2021
“Cementing Buddhist Supremacy: Militarized Development at a Sri Lankan Pilgrimage Site”

University of Texas at Austin, South Asia Institute, South Asia Seminar Series, October 1, 2020
“The Urban Nature of a Wilderness Reserve: Political Ecology & Pilgrimage at Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka”

South Asia Conference Symposium, Writing Sri Lanka: Futures Past, Madison, WI, October 17, 2019
“Doing History in the Dēvālaya: Buddhist Deities and the Devolution of Power”

Columbia University, Institute of Religion, Culture and Public Life – Time, Space, Memory workshop, October 3-4, 2019
“Making a Mountain like a City: Accelerating Pilgrimage & Abbreviating Memory in Sri Lanka”

Savitrabai Phule Pune University, Philosophy Department, Pune, India, October 28, 2017
“Natural Philosophy in the Anthropocene: What does Buddhist thought bring to new academic debates on ecology?”

International Workshop: Innovative Religiosity in Post-War Sri Lanka, Colombo, Sri Lanka, July11-13, 2017
“Highland Tamil Worship of God Saman: Religious Innovation in the Pilgrimage Industry, or Who is a ‘Tamil Buddhist?’”

The United States-Sri Lanka Fulbright Commission, Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 26, 2016
“Sacred Forests and Mountain Footprints: Religion, Environment, and Conservation in the Peak Wilderness Sanctuary”

Open University of Sri Lanka, Nawala, Colombo, Sri Lanka, June 29, 2016
“The Nature of Divinity: The Peak Wilderness Sanctuary and its Multireligious Forest”

Religion and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Mediating Presence and Distance, National University of Singapore, April 2021.
“Buddha Relics, Kali Syrup, and Covid Cures: Resisting Elite Restrictions with a Popular Goddess.”

American Academy of Religion Annual Meetings, San Diego, CA, Nov. 2019.
“Plant Persons and Sentient Stones: Human Relativity in Theravada Philosophies of Nature.”

American Academy of Religion Annual Meetings, Denver, CO, Nov. 2018.
“Merchants, Maidens, and Muhammadans: A History of Muslim Stereotypes in Sinhala Literature of Sri Lanka.”

South Asian Graduate Student Conference: The Limits of Humanistic Inquiry, University of Chicago, IL, Mar. 1-3, 2018.
“How Humans Retell a Mountain’s Story: Planetary Pluralism in South Asian Religious History.”

Claremont Conference on Philosophy of Religion: Negativity, Claremont University, CA, Feb. 16-18, 2017.
“The Apotheosis of Emptiness: God Suniyan and the Soteriological Necessity of Negativity in Sinhala Buddhism.”

American Academy of Religion Annual Meetings, San Antonio, TX, Nov. 2016.
“Forest Miracles and The Miracle of Forests: Pilgrimage and Ecological Reasoning at Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka.”

Fulbright Conference of South and Central Asia, Jaipur, India, Feb. 2016
“A Mountain of Myth: Adam’s Peak and Centuries of Storytelling.”

South Asian Graduate Student Conference: South Asian Mobilities, University of Chicago, IL, Mar. 5-6, 2015
“Sacred Sole on Makkama Sands: Transoceanic Mythmaking and Sinhala Buddhist Visions of Mecca.”

Claremont Conference on Philosophy of Religion: Self or No-Self, Claremont University, CA, Feb. 13-15, 2015.
“No Self or Ourselves? Wittgenstein and Language Games of Selfhood in a Sinhala Buddhist Form of Life.”

American Academy of Religion Annual Meetings, San Diego, CA, Nov. 2014. Religion and Cities group.
“The Sacred Second: Religious Moments in a Colombo Marketplace.”

History of the Religions, Part II, Columbia University, NY, March 28, 2014
“To Climb a Mountain: A Morphological History of Religions at Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka.”

Southeast Conference / Association of Asian Studies, Duke University, NC, Jan. 19, 2014
“After a Genealogy of the Concept of Ritual: Toward Ritual as Event & Discipline in South Asia.”

American Academy of Religion Annual Meetings, Baltimore, MD, Nov. 2013
“Fluid Minds: Being a Buddhist the Shambhalian Way.”

Sri Lanka Graduate Student Workshop: Intersections, Stanford University, CA, Nov. 9, 2012
“Village Life and City Living: Catholic Interreligious Dialogue, Cultural Crossings, and Modernity in Sri Lanka.”

Treasurer, October 2022-Present: AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR SRI LANKAN STUDIES

Charter Member, December 2021-Present: BERWYN TREE CANOPY INITIATIVE

Elected Board Member, October 2020-October 2022: AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR SRI LANKAN STUDIES

Peer Reviewer, 2020: SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

Peer Reviewer, 2019: SOUTH ASIA: JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES

Loyola Online Faculty Training Course, October 2018: LOYOLA UNIVERSITY NEW ORLEANS
Completed training course to design new online curricula for the Religious Studies Department.

Fulbright Pre-Departure Orientation Alumni Representative, June 2017: FULBRIGHT
Prepared future Fulbright grantees traveling to Sri Lanka for cultural transitions and foreign research.

Sinhala Translation Consultant, 2017: SIKH COALITION
Edited pamphlets on Sikh teachings to proofread translations from English to Sinhala.

Conference Organizer, 2013-2014: DUKE UNIVERSITY RELIGION & MODERNITY TRACK
Worked with other graduate students to plan and host the workshop “Knowing the Divine: Empiricism and Religious Experience” Feb. 21-22, 2014