He earned his PhD from the University of Vienna (2012) with a study on the polemical exchange between 'Ju Mi pham and Dpa' ris Rab gsal, two eminent Tibetan intellectuals of the 19th century, concerning the correct interpretation of an Indian Buddhist key text. His research explores the migration, appropriation, and negotiation of knowledge with a focus on recent Tibetan intellectual history. In a new project he studies the Eastern Himalayas, in particular the town of Kalimpong, as a "contact zone" for enabling and shaping the production of knowledge between Tibet and the modern world of the early 20th century.