Karma’s interests are in the wide variety of the Tibetan dialects of the modern spoken language with special focus upon the central Tibetan dialect (what is sometimes called “Standard Tibetan”) and the classical literary language with at least five main scripts to read any Tibetan manuscripts at least since the 7th century.
Karma taught the Tibetan language for six years at the University of California, Berkeley where he started the program from scratch in 2004. Prior to teaching at Berkeley, he taught the Tibetan language privately while serving as a Tibetan Research Consultant for the Electronic and Cultural Atlas Initiatives (ECAI) at Berkeley. He worked on the Tibetan gazetteer project about the religious history of Ganden called the Yellow Beryl [ba'i dur ya ser po]. He joined the University of Chicago in October 2010.
Karma works with graduate and undergraduate students interested in wide research area of Tibetan language, culture, Art and Tibetan Buddhist studies. He is also happy to help and guide BA theses on any aspect of studies about Tibet and to work with Masters students.