Pema is the communications director and an executive committee member at 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. Now based in Thailand, she serves on the board of the Neilson Hays Library (Bangkok) and considers herself fortunate to have entered the dharma as a child under the kindness of Thinley Norbu Rinpoche.
Pema has a range of experience across South and Southeast Asia: she founded northeast India’s first independent archive and research center, and her team’s work in the Himalayan state of Sikkim now sits with the British Library’s Endangered Archives Program representing the first collection of local origin to be made freely available online – a game changer for both international scholarship and in providing community access to their own untold histories. Her work has also included establishing Human Right’s Watch’s formal presence in South Asia; conducting field research in India’s Naxalite territories; managing a US State Department project to strengthen Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission; mapping gender-based violence and building access to justice in post-conflict settings; and researching possibilities around extraterritorial jurisdiction for war crimes committed in Sri Lanka.
Pema holds an MSc in Conflict Studies, focusing on International Human Rights Law, from the London School of Economics; and a bachelor’s degree in History and Art History from NYU.