In July 2024, Palden Gyal, a Columbia University Tibetan Studies Ph.D. Candidate (ABD), published his research on snow disasters and historical climate change research in Climates and Cultures in History.
The article illustrates how the research of climate scientists can be used to better understand demographic and other developments in Tibetan history.
Palden Gyal first started working on Tibetan historical climate research in a class with Professor Nicola di Cosmo (then head of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University) who was teaching a course at Columbia at the time. Palden then went on to co-develop a syllabus for a new course at Columbia which he co-taught with Professor Gray Tuttle and Dr. Hung Nguyen of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The class was part of efforts to engage contemporary climate scientists for a fuller study of historical and contemporary Tibet.
Palden Gyal is a doctoral student in Tibetan and late imperial Chinese history. He holds a B.A. in philosophy and an M.A. in philosophy of religion and Buddhist studies. Palden’s research interests lie broadly at the intersections of religion, ethics, and political theory. His dissertation project focuses on the practices of governance, the political and institutional history of Tibetan communities in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands from the 18th to the 20th century.
