NEW YORK — The prominent American academic and activist Robert Thurman, widely regarded as one of the West’s most influential scholars of Tibetan Buddhism, has passed away in New York at the age of 84. His cultural preservation organization, Tibet House US, confirmed that he passed away peacefully on Tuesday morning, June 16, 2026, in Woodstock, New York. A lifelong friend and disciple of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Thurman made history in 1965 as the first American to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. For three decades, he held the prestigious Jey Tsong Khapa Chair in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. His decades of advocacy for human rights and Tibetan heritage earned him the International Campaign for Tibet's Light of Truth Award in 2003, as well as India's high civilian honor, the Padma Shri, in 2020.