Katrin

Geshe Michael Roach was born in Los Angeles in 1952, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1975 he graduated with honors from the Religion Department of Princeton University, and is also a recipient of the McConnell Scholarship Prize from the University's School of Public & International Affairs. He has as well received the Presidential Scholar Medallion from the President of the United States at the White House. Michael is the first westerner in the 600-year history of Tibet's Sera Mey Monastery, one of the largest in the world, to be awarded the degree of Geshe (Master of Buddhism), after completing the required 25-year course and public examinations. In 1987, he founded the Asian Classics Input Project, which trains and pays refugees to digitalize the classic books of the East, and provides thousands of ancient manuscripts online without charge. The ACIP project led to the discovery and preservation of several dozen ancient texts of yoga, and in 2003 Michael founded the Yoga Studies Institute to translate, distribute, and teach these authentic, ancient systems of yoga exercise. His novel about a young woman who discovers and shares the deeper teachings of yoga, How Yoga Works, is a bestselling classic found in many languages, in yoga studios around the world.