Kira Johansen

Kira Johansen was introduced to Buddhist Studies in her third year of her undergraduate studies, in which she took a course titled “The Buddhist Tradition,” based on a mild ancestral interest in the topic. From the course, Kira Johansen’s interest in the field blossomed, and she began to specialize in Chinese Buddhism, taking her to Taiwan to study traditional Chinese at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan after her graduation from Florida State University in 2023. In her free time, Kira Johansen likes to partake in nearly any outdoor sport, including but not limited to: surfing, skiing, and hiking. Kira Johansen has additionally been involved in a number of research projects through the University of British Columbia’s FROGBEAR program (From the Ground Up: Buddhism and East Asian Religions) on the intersection of Chinese diasporas and the Thai religious landscape, despite her own original research interests focused mainly on the Biographies of Nuns and women’s sanctity in medieval China.