Dr Lucian Wong
Lucian Wong is a Post-Doctoral fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS), University of Oxford, UK and is Co-Director of the Bengali Vaiṣṇavism in the Modern Period Project of the OCHS.
Archives: Team Members
Danny MacGregor
Danny is an independent film maker, camera operator, and DP. He started his career in the industry as a child actor, finally moving into the technical side of film making in 2010. His talent is to tell engaging stories, factual or fictional, with strong visual images.
Richard Coldman
Richard Coldman, who produced our Sanskrit course videos, is a British filmmaker/musician/composer. In addition to shooting, directing and editing documentaries, he has developed a specialization in arts collaborations – in particular his animations of paintings by Alexander Gorlizki, educational video productions featuring choreographers Shobana Jeyasingh and Richard Alston, projections for live performances with Tracy Emin, V-TOL Dance Company and Dominic Murcott’s No Orchestra and a film for the South Bank Centre with poet Lavinia Greenlaw. Coldman considers Asian meditative, somatic and energy practices over an almost 40 year period to have been influential in developing the technical and interpersonal skills necessary for his work.
Dr Jessica Frazier
Dr Jessica Frazier has degrees in Sanskrit, Religious Studies, and Philosophy of Religion from Oxford and Cambridge. Dr Frazier edits the Journal of Hindu Studies and teaches Hinduism and other religious traditions at Oxford University. She recently published Reality, Religion, and Passion, a comparison of Western and Indian approaches to religious truth.
Prof. Mandakranta Bose
Mandakranta Bose is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. She is also Professor Emerita, Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, Canada. She studied Sanskrit and Hindu religious texts in Calcutta, comparative literature in Vancouver, and holds a doctorate from Oxford in textual studies in the classical performing arts of India. Mandakranta is the editor of The Ramayana Revisited (2004) and Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India (2000).
Daniel Simpson
Daniel has a Master’s degree in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation from SOAS, University of London. He’s also a devoted practitioner of asana, pranayama and meditation, which he’s studied on numerous visits to India since the 1990s. Daniel previously worked as a foreign correspondent, which helps him make complex subjects feel accessible. He writes about yoga for magazines and on his website: www.danielsimpson.info
Dr Raj Balkaran
Dr Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts and the author of The Goddess and the King in Indian Myth (Routledge 2018), The Goddess and the Sun in Indian Myth (Routledge 2020). Having taught comparative religion and mythology at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies for a decade, he now Tutors at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies where he also serves on the Continuing Education Department’s Course Development Board. Alongside his academic training, he has received extensive spiritual training as part of an oral tradition dedicated to the transmission of Indian wisdom teachings. Integrating his academic and spiritual training, he has founded the online School of Indian Wisdom where he designs and delivers original online courses centred on the practical life wisdom to be found in the philosophical, mythological and spiritual traditions of ancient India. Beyond teaching and research, Dr Balkaran runs a thriving life consulting practice and hosts the New Books in Indian Religions podcast.
Dr Zoë Slatoff
Dr Zoë Slatoff has created and tutors a comprehensive series of Sanskrit courses for the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. She has a PhD in Religion and Philosophy from Lancaster University and an MA in Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University. She teaches Sanskrit and Yoga Philosophy in the Yoga Studies MA program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Zoë is the author of Yogāvatāraṇam: The Translation of Yoga, a Sanskrit textbook based on classic yoga texts. She also taught for many years at her yoga shala in NY, Ashtanga Yoga Upper West Side.
