She has published on the historical, social, institutional, and doctrinal aspects of East Asian Buddhism, especially the Chinese Tiantai tradition. Penkower is currently completing two monographs: "Tiantai Buddhism and the Construction of Lineage during the Tang" and "Shared Sacrality," an annotated translation of the Jin'gangbei (The Diamond Scalpel), the eighth-century Chinese locus classicus for the idea of insentient buddha-nature.