Atlantan Joni Winston has made a $2 million pledge, payable over 10 years, to support the Emory-Tibet Partnership and its Emory-Tibet Science Initiative.

Winston has a particular interest in health and wellness issues. When she learned that one focus of the Emory-Tibet Partnership is to bridge the gap between the work of the inner mind in Tibetan culture and the scientific method of the West, she decided to get involved.

Now in its third year, the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative has expanded the horizons of scholarship by bringing together the tools of modern science with time-tested Buddhist contemplative knowledge. It involves more than two dozen Emory faculty from various scientific disciplines and seven full-time translators—three at Emory and four at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, India.

The initiative has led to six completed science textbooks in Tibetan and English, with two more textbooks in various stages of completion. In addition, three bilingual science primers have been completed and, after six years, a total of ten textbooks and fifteen primers will have been published and distributed.