Dr.Varaporn Chamsanit

Thailand

Dr. Varaporn Chamsanit holds a B.A. in English from Thammasat University, Thailand, an M.A. in Women’s Studies from Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the National Australian University.

Dr. Varaporn is the Acting Director of the Office of Human Rights Studies and Social Development, Mahidol University. She also serves as the Program Director for the International M.A. and Ph.D. programs in Human Rights and is a board member of the Foundation for Women and of the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women.

She conducts research and writes extensively on the human rights of Buddhist women in Thailand. Her Ph.D. dissertation, for example, was titled, “Reconnecting the Lost Lineage: Challenges to Institutional Denial of Buddhist Women’s Monasticism in Thailand.” She has also written: “Transnational Buddhist Women’s Monasticism: Contesting the Boundaries of Thai Buddhism”; “The Monk, Sexes and the State: Women’s Monasticism in Thai Buddhism”; “The Gender of the Sangha and the Reform and Bureaucratization of Thai Buddhism”.

Dr. Varaporn Chamsanit conducts research on and/or supervises research to protect the human rights of: children, indigenous people, gays and lesbians, and women.