Jan Willis

Author and Spiritual Innovator

Jan Willis (BA and MA in Philosophy, Cornell University, 1969 and 1971); PhD in Indic and Buddhist Studies, Columbia University, 1976) is Professor of Religion and Walter A. Crowell Professor of the Social Sciences at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland, and the United States for more than three decades, and has taught courses in Buddhism for over twenty-five years.

Willis is the author of several books including "The Diamond Light: An Introduction to Tibetan Buddhist Meditation" (1972), "On Knowing Reality: The Tattvartha Chapter of Asanga's Bodhisattvabhumi" (1979), "Enlightened Beings: Life Stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition" (1995); and the editor of "Feminine Ground: Essays on Women and Tibet" (1989).

One of the earliest American scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, Professor Willis has published numerous essays and articles on Buddhist meditation, hagiography, women and Buddhism, and Buddhism and race. Her latest published project was the memoir, "Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey," published by Riverhead Books in 2001.

In December of 2000, Time Magazine named Willis one of six "spiritual innovators for the new millennium." In 2003, professor Willis was a recipient of Wesleyan University's Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching. In 2005, Newsweek magazine's "Spirituality in America" issue included a profile of her and, in its May 2007 edition, Ebony magazine named Willis one of its "Power 150" most influential African Americans.