Professor
Specialty field:Buddhist Studies; Tibetan and Bhutanese Studies
Specialty field:Buddhist Studies; Tibetan and Bhutanese Studies
Seiji Kumagai studied Buddhist philosophy and received his Ph.D. in 2009 from Kyoto University. In 2011, he became an assistant professor at Hakubi Center for Advanced Research of Kyoto University. In 2013, he became Uehiro Associate Professor at Kokoro Research Center of Kyoto University. Since 2017, he has been a divisional director at Kokoro Research Center. Since 2023, he has been Professor of Kyoto University Institute for the Future of Human Society (IFOHS) from then until present. Since 2025, he has been a vice director of IFoHS. He has been also invited by many universities as a guest professor/researcher such as Numata Visiting Professor (at University of Vienna in 2018). His field of research is Buddhist Madhyamaka philosophy in India, Tibet and Bhutan, and also that of Bon religion. He has also studied history of Tibetan and Bhutanese Buddhism. He published books such as The Two Truths in Bon (Kathmandu: Vajra Publications, 2011), Bhutanese Buddhism and Its Culture (Kathmandu: Vajra Publications, 2014), and Buddhism, Culture and Society in Bhutan (Kathmandu: Vajra Publications, 2018), and also many academic articles on the philosophy of Indo-Himalayan Buddhism and Bon religion. He has developed “traditional wisdom technology” by integrating traditional wisdom and cutting-edge technology such as AI and XR, thus created products and concepts such as BuddhaBot and Tera-verse. As a program director (PD) of Moonshot Project of Japan’s Cabinet Office (Moonshot Goal 9), he has developed “kokoro-tech” (technology related to mind and spirit) to detect and improve mental status by integrating biology, neuro-science, social science and humanities.