Director: Alexander Norman

Alexander Norman holds a BA in Philosophy and Theology (winning the Duns Scotus Prize for Mediaeval Philosophy) and an MSt in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford.

He is a long-time associate of HH the Dalai Lama, having worked closely with the Tibetan leader on his autobiography, Freedom In Exile (London 1990, Hodder and Stoughton); Ethics For The New Millennium (London 2000, Little Brown) and Beyond Religion: Ethics For a Whole World (Boston 2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). In addition, he has served as a speech writer for HH the Dalai Lama and on the Tibetan leader’s Special Review Committee.

Alexander Norman is the author of Holder Of The White Lotus, a history of the Dalai Lama institution. At present, he is working on a biography of HH the Dalai Lama, The Dalai Lama: A Portrait, to be published in 2016.

He is President of the London-based charity, Help Tibet.

Professor: Stephen Priest

Stephen Priest is Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and a member of Hughes Hall at the University of Cambridge. He has been a Visiting Professor in universities in France, Germany, Japan, Macedonia, the Netherlands, and the United States.

Stephen is the author of The British Empiricists (Penguin, Routledge), Theories of the Mind (Penguin, Houghton Mifflin), Merleau-Ponty (Routledge), The Subject in Question (Routledge) and editor of Hegel’s Critique of Kant, (Oxford University Press), Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings (Routledge) and A Dictionary of Philosophy (ed. with Antony Flew) (Macmillan).

His work has been translated into Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Russian and Spanish. His current research interests include the relations between science and spirituality and the existence and nature of consciousness. He lectures in metaphysics, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of history at the University of Oxford.

Director of Communications: Kerry Smallman

Kerry Smallman has lectured in British Civilisation, Communication Studies and English Language at Von Humboldt University (Berlin), Eichstaett University (Bavaria) and The University of Côte d’Opale (Boulogne).

She manages the centre’s web presence and blogs on topical ethical issues. Her work has appeared in national media such as The Voice newspaper and The BBC World Service, as well as local and specialist magazines, such as Future Music, South Edinburgh Echo and Oxfordshire Music Scene. She presents a weekly show on Destiny 105 FM.

Research Fellow: Ralph Weir

Ralph Weir lectures in aesthetics at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford. He has also taught epistemology, ancient philosophy, and ancient Greek language, and has contributed to conferences and workshops in the UK, USA, and Europe. These include keynote talks for the ‘Science and Personal Action’ conference, MIT, 2015, and the First International Philosophical Dialogue, «EAST-WEST», Skopje, 2015. He holds a BPhil in Philosophy and an MSt in Ancient Philosophy from the University of Oxford and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Reading. His current research at the University of Cambridge concerns the philosophy of mind and is funded by an AHRC doctoral scholarship. In addition to his work for the Dalai Lama Centre, he is co-founder of the Humane Philosophy Project, a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford and Warsaw organising high profile conferences, seminars, and accredited philosophy courses.

Stipendiary Fellow: Samuel Hughes

Samuel Hughes is a Vice-Chancellor’s Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he is pursuing research on ethics and the philosophy of emotion. From 2013-15 he was a Lord Crewe Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and a B.Phil. in Philosophy from the University of Oxford; his BA thesis on Schiller’s theory of tragedy was awarded the Elizabeth Anscombe Prize for the best philosophy thesis in 2013, and has subsequently been accepted for publication in the British Journal of Aesthetics. Hughes is a peer reviewer for a number of leading academic journals, including the British Journal of Aesthetics and Mortality, an organizer of the Humane Philosophy Project and the Aesthetics Editor of Politics and Poetics. In the coming year, he will be teaching at the Universities of Skopje, Warsaw and Buckingham, and working as a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo.