Tenzin (Tendor) Dorjee is an activist and writer, and the former executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, a global network of students and activists dedicated to advancing Tibetan freedom and human rights. His writings have been published in various international media and he is a regular commentator on Tibet-related issues on Radio Free Asia, Voice of America and Voice of Tibet. Born and raised in India, he is a graduate of the Tibetan Children’s Village and Brown University. He worked at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, DC, before moving to New York to work at Students for a Free Tibet.

Tendor has just completed Master’s degree in political science at Columbia University, where his monograph studied the evolution of nonviolent resistance in the Tibetan freedom struggle. Highlighting the changing role of culture in the post-2008 Tibetan world, the monograph – published soon – argues that one of the most significant developments in the evolution of Tibetan resistance is how Tibetans’ traditional view of ‘culture as a victim’ of China’s oppression has been replaced by their rediscovery of ‘culture as a weapon’ to fight oppression.