Lourdes Argüelles, PhD also known as Lopon Dorje Khandro, was ordained a Ngakma (lay tantric practitioner) by HE the 8th Garchen Rinpoche and installed as a Lopon (senior dharma teacher) by HH the 37th Chetsang Rinpoche, head of the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Buddhism in the Tibetan tradition. She is Professor Emerita of Education and Cultural Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California and a former licensed psychotherapist who worked pro bono with survivors of political torture and with migrants in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Lopon Dorje Khandro currently lives in retreat except when accompanying the dying and teaching at Drikung Kyobpa Choling, a traditional Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Escondido, California, and its sangha in Latin America.