Team Members | Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies Online

Prof. Patrick Olivelle

Patrick Olivelle is Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. His current research focuses on the ancient Indian legal tradition of Dharmaśāstra. He has edited and translated the four early Dharmasūtras and prepared a critical edition of the Law Code of Manu (Mānava Dharmaśāstra). Among his many other works is an award-winning translation of the early Upaniṣads. Prof. Olivelle has won several prestigious fellowships, including Guggenheim, NEH, and ACLS. He was elected Vice President of the American Oriental Society in 2004 and President in 2005.

Natasha Chawla

Natasha Chawla is a DPhil Candidate in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, focusing on Tagore’s Nature Philosophy. Her work and interests include Environmental Philosophy and Hinduism in particular Vedanta, Patanjali Yoga Sutras, and Inter and Intrafaith dialogue.

Dr Kenneth Valpey

Ken Valpey is one of the OCHS’s early students receiving his Doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2004. He is a theologian with a particular interest in animal ethics. He is an OCHS Fellow and a co-director of our Bhagavata Purana Research Project.

Prof. Ravi Gupta

Ravi was an early Doctoral student at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. He now holds the Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies and serves as Professor and Department Head of the Department of History at Utah State University. He is the author or editor of four books, including an abridged translation of the Bhagavata Purana with Kenneth Valpey (Columbia University Press, 2017). Ravi has received four teaching awards, a National Endowment for the Humanities summer fellowship, and two research fellowships at Oxford. He is a Permanent Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and a past president of the Society for Hindu Christian Studies. His current research focuses on the Bhagavata Purana’s Sanskrit commentaries.

Daniela Bevilacqua

Daniela Bevilacqua is an Indianist specialising in Hindu asceticism, investigated through an ethnographic and historical perspective. She is currently a researcher at CRIA (ISCTE-IUL) in Lisbon. She worked as a post-doctoral researcher at SOAS, for the ERC-funded Haṭha Yoga Project (2015–2020). She is the author of Modern Hindu Traditionalism in Contemporary India, published by Routledge; From Tapas to Modern Yoga forthcoming in 2024 published by Equinox,; and several articles and book chapters on topics related to Hindu religious tradition, gender, and embodied practices.

Prof. Gopal Gupta

Gopal Gupta is an Indian philosopher and Joe Dunham Distinguished Professor of Ethics at Aurora University. Previously, he was a professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Evansville. Gopal is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies (JHCS)

Simon Haas

Simon is an author and teacher of yoga philosophy who specialises in applying yoga wisdom to everyday life. From the age of 13, Simon began studying the sacred texts of India and spent ten years living in temples and monasteries in India. He apprenticed for sixteen years with an elderly master-practitioner in the Vedānta tradition. Simon is author of the international bestseller The Book of Dharma: Making Enlightened Choices, published in six languages. His most recent book, Yoga and the Dark Night of the Soul, explores how crisis and difficulty can form part of our yoga path. Simon has delivered seminars and workshops in fourteen countries and at leading yoga festivals internationally. In 2019, he presented at the United Nations and provided training to the UN’s dispute resolution division. Simon graduated with honours from the University of Cambridge and holds a masters in comparative religion with distinction from the University of Oxford. He is currently completing doctoral studies in Oxford.

Dr Arun Brahmbhatt

Arun is Assistant Professor of South Asian Religions at St. Lawrence University, New York. His research is focused on Sanskrit scholastic traditions in colonial and contemporary western India. He is interested more broadly in print culture, the historiography of Vedānta, and the genealogy of religious traditions in Gujarat and the Gujarati diaspora. He is currently the Shivdasani Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and a director of its “Rethinking Hinduism in Colonial India” research project.