Venerable Barry Kerzin M.D.
Founder & President, Altruism in Medicine Institute; Adjunct Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
2021, 2022, 2024, 2025
Barry Kerzin is a physician and Tibetan Buddhist monk. For 36 years he has lived in Dharamsala, currently with the Dalai Lama, as one of his doctors. He feels blessed to also serve the poor free of charge.
For 10 years his team has been spreading compassion through his NPO, Altruism in Medicine Institute (AIMI). Compassion is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for the survival of humans, animals, and mother earth. For 2.5 years we’ve been developing a burnout prevention mobile app and platform, to reinvigorate hope and cultivate flourishing. It is called AIMIcare.
At the University of Pittsburgh, he is an Adjunct Professor in Psychiatry. At the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Barry is an honorary professor in the School of Medicine and in the Centre for Buddhist Studies. At the Mongolian National University of Medical Science, he is an Honorary Professor. At the University of Washington School of Medicine, he is an Emeritus Assistant Professor. And at the Central University for Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath (Varanasi) India he is an Emeritus Visiting Professor.
As an Executive Advisor he regularly visits Google Deep Mind in London regularly, pumping compassion into Artificial General Intelligence, enhancing AI for good. A graduate class at Carnegie Mellon University in 2024 invited Dr. Kerzin to lecture on Ethical AI, as he maintains a deep working interest in AI for good.
The Devoted Health healthcare organization CEO Founder, Todd Park, has appointed Dr. Kerzin as a Senior Advisor for reducing burnout and enhancing flourishing among their healthcare professionals, staff, and clients (patients).
Dr. Kerzin is the Founder and CEO of Altruism in Medicine Institute (AIMI) —https://altruismmedicine.org/. He is also the Founder Chairman of the Human Values Institute (HVI) in Japan — https://humanvaluesinstitute.org/about/dr-barry-kerzin/. For 18 years Barry has presented multiple programs at Google Japan, Mitsubishi Jisho, Bridgestone, and Unilever Japan, as well as teaching Shantideva’s main text on compassion and wisdom, line-by-line, over a 14-year period.
Many seminars and programs have been offered in the corporate world on Ethical leadership and work-life balance to Mitsubishi, Unilever, Google Japan, Google Deep Mind (London), Salesforce (under discussion), and many other corporations.
There have been many Medical Grand Rounds presenting the art and science of compassion at Stanford Medical School, University of Pittsburgh Medical School, and other medical schools by Dr. Kerzin.
Four (4) TEDx talks: in Philadelphia, Taipei, Sao Paulo, and Pittsburgh have been presented by Dr. Kerzin. A 3-year meditation retreat was completed in 2002. In 2003 Barry was ordained as a Bikkshu (fully ordained monk) by HH the Dalai Lama. His brain was studied at Princeton University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. They found the executive function area in the front part of the cortex to be bigger and more active among our long-term meditator group of 12 meditators.
Four (4) books have been authored by Dr. Kerzin: No Fear No Death: the Power of Compassion; Nagarjuna’s Wisdom are in English, and two others are in Japanese.
Where tech meets spirituality is his sweet spot. We are at a critical juncture in history, where getting this right matters greatly not only for us, but for our children, grandchildren, as well as mother earth.
My network of professionals working on countering hate in all its forms grew exponentially after attending Eradicate Hate in 2021. The myriad voices represented at Eradicate Hate, from big tech companies to academic researchers to those with lived experience, reinforced to me the importance of cross-cutting and collaborative approaches to counter hate and its devastating impacts on society. I’ve been fortunate to sustain and build those networks with many of those I met at Eradicate Hate in 2021.
