Elaine Lai Ph.D, is a storyteller and a scholar of Buddhism who currently works as a Lecturer for Stanford University where she teaches courses on citizenship, science fiction and technology, and more. As part of her dissertation, Elaine built a virtual reality experience and a heatmap application to make her research on the Great Perfection tradition of Buddhism accessible to wider audiences.
Outside of academia, Elaine’s creative work draws deeply from her research in Buddhist literature and her own transformative life experiences as an Asian American who has lived in over seven countries. Elaine’s narratives spotlight unconventional female and queer protagonists, wrestling most with the question: how can marginalized bodies be free and experience joy within the constraints of deeply violent and wounded societies? Elaine’s first feature length screenplay was a semifinalist for the 2022 Sundance Screenwriting Lab.
Elaine previously spent a decade working and studying in China, Taiwan, India, Hong Kong, and Nepal. During that time, Elaine studied film directing at the Beijing Film Academy, worked for corporate ad agencies in Shanghai, taught yoga in Taiwan, staged plays at the Foguangshan Buddhist monastery, and studied Tibetan at the Ka-Nying Shedrup Ling monastery in Kathmandu. In the process of it all, Elaine immersed within many different communities where she made lifelong friends who have drastically influenced the way she understands the world.