Per K. Sørensen

He is currently (Fall 2017) the Numata Visiting Professor in Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 2015 he was a participant in the Tibet Research Group on “Tibetan Genealogies" at Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study), with Guntram Harzod (head), Tsering Gyalpo (Lhasa) and Shen Weirong (Beijing).

Sørensen has travelled widely in Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal and the Himalayas. He has been involved in a number of prestigious projects in his field and also editorial commitments. From 1995 until 2010, he headed a long-term Danish-funded twinning project at the National Library of Bhutan, conducted in collaboration with the Royal Library of Denmark. He has held lectures around the world and is currently a board member of The International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS).

From 1994 to 2017 he held the chair of Professor of Central Asian Studies (Zentralasienwissenschaften, Tibetology and Mongol Studies) at Leipzig Universität, Germany, which is the second-oldest university in Germany and has a long tradition of Oriental studies.

Sørensen has teaching commitments and experience from Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the United States. He was the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Stipend (1991–92) in Bonn, Germany, a sojourn that resulted in one of his most well known works, Tibetan Buddhist Historiography (1994).

Born in København, Denmark. From 1971 to 1982 he studied Tibetology, Sinology, and Indology at Copenhagen University. In 1981 Sørensen received his mag. art. (magister) degree from the University and as the first person to receive a Magister in Tibetology in Scandinavia. His teacher was Erik Haarh, who had studied in the 1950s with the pioneer of Tibetology, Giuseppe Tucci in Rome. As his principal student, Haarh had a lasting influence on Sørensen particularly inspiring his interest in Tibetan history. In 1990, Sørensen defended his doctoral thesis (Københavns Universitet) Divinity Secularized. An Inquiry into the Nature and Form of the Songs Ascribed to the Sixth Dalai Lama (Wien 1990).

Per Kjeld Sørensen (born 18 December 1950) is a prominent Danish Tibetologist who specialises in Tibetan and Himalayan history, literature and culture. Since 1994 he has been Professor of Central Asian Studies (Zentralasienwissenschaften, Tibetology and Mongol Studies) at Leipzig University, Germany.