Trent Walker
Trent Walker
Trent Walker
- Academic Development CommitteeCommittee Member
Trent Walker is a member of Khyentse Foundation’s Academic Development Committee, which focuses on grants to and partnerships with universities around the world. As part of this committee, he also helps organize and host the monthly Goodman Lectures, which showcase some of the Buddhist studies scholars that KF works with around the globe.
Trent Walker is assistant professor of Southeast Asian studies and Thai Professor of Theravada Buddhism at the University of Michigan. Prior to moving to Ann Arbor, he completed postdoctoral fellowships at Chulalongkorn University (sponsored by Khyentse Foundation) and the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University. A specialist in Southeast Asian Buddhist music, literature, and manuscripts, he earned his PhD in Buddhist studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018. His publications focus on issues of ritual, literary, and intellectual history in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.
I deeply admire KF’s nonsectarian approach to supporting Buddhist scholarship and practice. My perspective is shaped by an immersion into the Theravada tradition; in my teens and early 20s, I spent 5 months as a novice monk in Cambodia and trained for several years in Khmer chanting techniques. I’m very fortunate to have regular opportunities to perform for ritual and cultural functions in Southeast Asia and the United States. In my teaching and research work, I’m particularly drawn to projects that make Southeast Asia’s Buddhist heritage more accessible to communities both in the region and in diaspora.