Real Jobs

David L. Snellgrove Senior Lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, since September 2014

Curator, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2010–2014
Curator and then Senior Curator at the Rubin Museum of Art working on the collection and special exhibitions (see sidebar).

Academic Nomad

Visiting Professor, Stanford University and UC Berkeley, January to May 2010
Winter quarter appointment as Visiting Professor at the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, part of Religious Studies, at Stanford University to teach Gandharan art, and Numata Visiting Professor for the spring semester at the Group in Buddhist Studies at the University of California at Berkeley to teach a seminar on Tibetan Buddhist art.

Advisor, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, Autumn 2009
Advisory work for the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, concerning the so-called Permanent Collection; critical assessment and development of selection criteria.

Research Fellow and Guest Curator, ISAW, New York University, 2008–2009
Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, to curate an exhibition on the newly excavated Gandharan Buddhist site of Zar Dheri, Hazara, Pakistan, which was planned to open in autumn 2010. Despite the generous support of the excavators from the Tokyo National Museum and the Department of Archaeology and Museums in Pakistan, the project had to be abandoned in June 2009 due to its costs.

Visiting Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, Spring 2008
Spring quarter appointment to teach Tibetan art at UCSB, a program that was enabled by a grant from the The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.

Guest Curator, Art and Exhibition Hall of Germany, Bonn, 2007–2009
Together with Michael Jansen I was guest curator of the exhibition "Gandhara—The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan" at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn, which opened on 20th November 2008. The exhibition has further been shown in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, the Museum Rietberg in Zürich (2009) and the Musée Guimet in Paris (2010).

Guest lecturer, Tibet Site Seminar, June 2007
Guest lecturer at an on-site graduate seminar traveling through Tibet for a month. The seminar was organized by Stephen F. Teiser, D.T. Suzuki Professor in Buddhist Studies, Princeton University, Department of Religion.

Tibet Site Seminar participants on pass in West Tibet (2007 D0335)

Guest Professorship, Institute of Art History, Freie Universität, Berlin, 2006–2008
Three semester ‘Gastdozent’ for South Asian Art replacing a professorship.

Research Fellow, Lumbini International Research Institute, Nepal, 2005–2006
One year research fellowship at the Lumbini International Research Institute, Nepal, to work on the depictions of the Bodhisattva Maitreya during the Kushana period. Work on the fellowship project was continued to be supported in 2009.

Visiting Assistant Professor, University of California at Berkeley, 2004–2005
One year appointment to teach Tibetan art and Tibetan Buddhism at the invitation of the Group in Buddhist Studies, UCB, enabled by a Freeman Foundation grant.

Research Fellow, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2003–2004
Six months Andrew W. Mellon Art History Fellowship to work on the Tibetan collection.

Vienna

Research Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 2000–2003
Three year research grant of the Austrian Programme for Advanced Research and Technology (APART) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Lecturer, University of Vienna, 1999–2007
Regular teaching employments on different topics of Buddhist iconography at University of Vienna, Austria.

Research Project, University of Vienna, 1989–2001
Different jobs and responsibilities in a research project on "Early Indo-Tibetan Monastic Art in the Western Himalayas, 10th–13th century" headed by Prof. D.E. Klimburg-Salter and supported by the Austrian "Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung" (FWF), including six years full time employment (1st June 1994 – 31st May 2000). In the course of this work I assisted in two exhibition projects, namely "Buddha in Indien", Vienna 1996, and a catalogue cum exhibition of the Tucci collection at the Museo Nazionale d’Arte Orientale, Rome, which did not come about, and in the publication of Tabo – a Lamp for the Kingdom. Early Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Art in the Western Himalaya. Milan/New York: Skira/Thames and Hudson, 1997.