User:Truedharma
Brief General Bio Born 6/23/1946, in an up elevator St. Mary’s Hospital Brooklyn, New York
Frank M. Tedesco, Ph.D. was a serious hippie in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and student at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. He earned an MA in religion and philosophy at the University of Lancaster, UK, (1974) and later had a doctoral fellowship in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Frank did a stint as a leprosy control public health educator in resettlement farming villages for the US Peace Corps in Korea, 1980-1981, following up his research interest in stigmatized communities.
He was a resident in psychiatric anthropology at Philadelphia State Hospital and a clinical assistant in the office of Psychohormonal Research at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Baltimore, and research associate in Traumatology, University of South Florida, Tampa.
He completed a second Ph.D. program at Dongguk University, Seoul in bioethics in 1996.
He briefly volunteered with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in early 1997.
Frank has taught for U Maryland, USF and elsewhere and gave invited lecture tours in Korea, Australia, Malaysia and Taiwan. He had an audience with the Dalai Lama in India in 2000.
Frank shares his life in Largo with his wife Jinsuk, four rescued chihuahuas and many beautiful wild birds and reptiles in a water retention pond behind their home. They relocated to Largo from Seoul, Korea in July 2001. He was teaching Indian Religions at Rollins College when the Twins Towers were hit. He has been a volunteer chaplain in prisons, hospitals & Suncoast Hospices for years. Frank founded the religious charity 501(c)(3) True Dharma International Buddhist Mission in 2007 and raises funds for the poorest of the poor in India. See www.truedharma.org
Frank has published on socially engaged Buddhism, and inter-religious conflict resolution (extremist Christian arson attacks on Buddhist temples in South Korea in Buddhist-Christian Studies), religious persecution in the Encyclopedia of Monasticism, in Buddhism and Abortion (University of Hawaii) and Buddhist social engagement in Action Dharma.
Frank written chapters for the books Compassion in the 4 Dharmic Traditions of India, (2016) and in Gandhi and the World, (2018). He was a participant in “B. R. Ambedkar and Dimensions of Social Change” in Nashik, India (Research Journey, XIX, 2017) and lectured at the University of Pune and the University of Nagpur. A feature interview appeared in the newspaper The Times of India. Frank has taught Indian world views, dying well and spiritual healing for OLLI, Lifelong Learning at USF Tampa. He completed a six-week post-doctoral fellowship in Jain Studies in India in 2019. He filmed interviews with prominent doctors and spiritual teachers for his Good Death Auspicious Rebirth film project. The aim of the program is to familiarize American healthcare personnel with the end-of-life beliefs of terminally ill Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs.
Frank is a life member of FVA- Florida Voices for Animals. He likes to cook vegetarian, garden, meditate and study at home.