Robert Buswell Jr.

[2] Buswell then left the United States and became a Buddhist monk in Thailand, then Taiwan, and finally The Republic of Korea where he spent five years at Songgwangsa.

His dissertation was entitled:"The Korean Origin of the Vajrasamadhi-Sutra: A Case Study in Determining the Dating, Provenance, and Authorship of a Buddhist Apocryphal Scripture.

[2][5][6] He was interim vice-provost and dean of the International Institute (2000–2001) and was elected president of the Association for Asian Studies (2008–09);[2] He retired from UCLA in 2022.

[4] Buswell and other noted scholars of Buddhism at UCLA, such as William Bodiford and Gregory Schopen, have made it one of the strongest Buddhist studies programs in the world.

In 2009, Buswell was awarded the Manhae Grand Prize from the Chogye Order in recognition of his pioneering contributions to Korean Buddhist Studies in the West.