Ven. Prof. Dr. K. Khammai Dhammasami Venerable Khammai Dhammasam was born in 1965 in the Shan State. He ordained as a novice as a teenager at a branch of the Mahasi Meditation Center. He received his first degree in Buddhist Literature from Sasana Mandaing Pali University in Burma in 1985, which he completed in only a year. Also in 1985 he received first prize in the Shan State annual Sangha examination. He proceeded to receive MAs at the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka and the Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies. In 2004, he received his DPhil from Oxford for his thesis on Monastic Education in Burma and Thailand over the last four centuries.In addition to his position in IABU, he presently serves as a trustee of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies and the Abbot of the Oxford Buddhist Vihara. Venerable Dhammasami is proficient in Shan, Burmese, English, Pali, Thai and Sanskrit, and competent in aural Sinhala and Laotian. He has served as a lecturer at the Sasana Mandaing Pali University, the YMBA in Colombo, and the World Buddhist Foundation.