SINI’s Founding Executive Director, Tsering Palmo Gellek, was born in Berkeley, California in 1973. Since 2001, Tsering has engaged in Buddhist cultural preservation work throughout Asia. Tsering began construction on the Institute in 2007 and completed it in 2013. Like a lotus, SINI emerged from barren land near the site of the Buddha’s first teachings. Rinpoche’s pithy mission instruction to Tsering was to “connect East and West” and build along the North-South Axis. To this day, Tsering nurtures the growth of a beautiful campus and designs innovative programs that harness the power of collaboration and transformation for monastics and laypeople.

Raised in a multicultural family and Buddhist community, she is the youngest daughter of a French-Egyptian poet, Nazli Nour, and Tarthang Rinpoche. She completed her bachelor’s degree in International Affairs at Lewis and Clark College in 1995 and a Master’s degree in Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 2000.

Her first major cultural preservation project included the installation of eight large world peace bells at the most sacred Buddhist sites throughout India and Nepal, including Sarnath, Kushinagar, Lumbini, Boudha, Tso Pema, Swayambhu, Rajgir, and Shravasti.

In 2008, Tsering was asked by her father to direct the restoration of the world’s most ancient stupa, Swayambhu, Nepal. For the past fifteen hundred years, the Swayambhu Stupa has been renovated each century. Tsering was the first female director. She worked with over 70 traditional artists, Nepal’s Department of Archaeology, numerous Buddhist priests and their communities, UNESCO, and other consultants. This historic and complex project is documented in the book Light of the Valley (Dharma Publishing) and an award-winning documentary of the same title.