Dr. Victor Gabriel is an Assistant and Tenured Professor in the Department of Buddhist Chaplaincy at the University of the West. He was chair from 2014-2018 and 2022 to present. He is program coordinator for the Master of Divinity in Buddhist Chaplaincy. He is a board member for the Society of Buddhist-Christian Studies and a Buddhist co-convener of the National Council of Churches’ Buddhist-Christian Dialogue.

His dissertation was titled Embodying Generosity: Buddhist and Feminist views of the Physical Body as seen through the Tibetan Buddhist Ritual of Chöd and it explores the contribution of Feminists to the construction of American Tibetan Buddhism by way of Feminist Theory and the intersectionality of the body and ritual. His publications included: “Ecology of the Bodhisattva” in Refuge in the Storm: Buddhist Approaches to Compassionate Crisis Care, North Atlantic, 2022; “Leading and Facilitating Spiritual Reflection” with Rev. Duane Bidwell PhD in Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care in the 21st Century, University of North Carolina, 2022; “Implications for Interfaith Chaplaincy from a Tibetan Buddhist Understanding of Religious Location and the Two Truths” in Navigating Religious Difference in Spiritual Care and Counseling, Claremont School of Theology, 2019; “Buddhism and Sexuality” in A Thousand Arms: A Guide to Caring for your Buddhist Community, Toronto: Sumeru Books, 2016.

His research areas include Applied Buddhist “theology,” Feminist and Queer Theory, conceptualizations of the Body as seen in Buddhist Art, Ritual Studies and the inculturation of American Buddhism. He was a psychotherapist and is a Buddhist lay minister.