Rita D. Sherma, PhD, Speaker

Rita D. Sherma, PhD, is Core Doctoral Faculty, Founding Director of the Center for Dharma Studies, Co-Chair of GTU Sustainability 360, and Associate Professor at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. She previously held the Swami Vivekananda Visiting Professorship at the University of Southern California. An internationally recognized scholar of environmental sustainability studies, contemplative studies, interreligious studies, and Indian religions, she specializes in Hindu philosophy, theology, and ethics. She was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Dharma Studies: Asian and Transcultural Religion, Philosophy, & Ethics and has published eight edited or authored books, including Religion and Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses; Contemplative Studies and Hinduism: Meditation, Devotion, Prayer and Worship; Contemplative Studies and Jainism; and her recent monograph, A Hindu Ecological Liberation Theology: Radical Divine Immanence, Shakti, and the Living World. Her scholarship has received numerous honors, including the 2023 SASA Exemplar Award and the 2024 GTU Distinguished Faculty Award. Beyond academia, she has produced two digital environmental humanities documentaries, including the public education certificate Ecospirituality: Environmental Pathways to Healing, and was Senior Religion and Culture Consultant for Pixar’s Academy Award-winning film Soul. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology.