Alexander von Rospatt is a Professor of Buddhist and South Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in the doctrinal history of Indian Buddhism and in the indigenous Buddhist tradition of the Kathmandu Valley, where he lived and researched for several years. He was trained at SOAS (London Univ.) and Hamburg University. Before joining UC Berkeley in January 2004, he served as an assistant professor at the University of Leipzig. He has also taught on visiting appointments at the Universities of Oxford, Vienna, and Munich and at the Institute for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies in Tokyo.