Past Member

Priyadarshi Shukla

Former Strategic Initiatives Advisor
  • Director's Office

The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi is an innovative thinker, a philosopher, an educator, and a polymath monk. He  is  Founding Director of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a center dedicated to inquiry, dialogue, and education on the ethical and humane dimensions of life. As a collaborative and nonpartisan think tank, its programs emphasize responsibility and examine meaningfulness and moral purpose between individuals, organizations, and societies. The Center at MIT has 6 Nobel Peace Laureates as its founding members and its programs run in 8 countries and expanding. Venerable Tenzin’s unusual background encompasses entering a Buddhist monastery at the age of 10 years to receiving graduate education at Harvard with degrees ranging from Philosophy to Physics to International Relations.

Venerable Tenzin serves on the Board of several academic, humanitarian, and religious organizations.  He is a recipient of several recognitions and awards, including a 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award from Harvard for his visionary contributions to humanity. He is also  and a Tribeca Disruptive Fellow.