Our resident teacher, Geshe Thubten Sherab, is joined by a team of some thirty FPMT and other teachers, facilitators, and meditation leaders from around the world, these days exclusively via Zoom.
Our Teams
The Buddhist Center, Thubten Norbu Ling, is one of the 160+ organizations affiliated with the FPMT and is a religious nonprofit corporation, registered in New Mexico.
The Executive Director Charmaine Hughes – known in the FPMT as the Center Director and selected for that role by Lama Zopa Rinpoche – is supported by a board of directors.
A team of managers, some of whom also serve as officers of the corporation as required by the state of New Mexico, oversee the various departments of the center.
Each department in turn has its own team, some of whom are paid but most of whom are volunteers.
Charmaine has recently appointed a Center Manager, who will gradually take over the center’s day-to-day activities.
As our new center is being constructed and all our activities are online, our four main teams these days are Spiritual Program, which is organizing our curriculum of some 20 classes a week, Hospitality, which has a team of 30 Zoom hosts, and Marketing and Finances.
Management
Charmaine Hughes
Charmaine Hughes
Executive Director
Marketing
Finances
Ven. Losang Dondrub
Center Manager
Shankha Mitra
Spiritual Program Manager
Matt Bunkowski
Giving Manager
Mary Camille Lutz
Zoom Host Coordinator
Matthew Cannella
IT/AV Manager
Officers of the Corporation
Charmaine Hughes
President
Nancy Savoia
Treasurer
Matt Bunkowski
Secretary
Shankha Mitra
Spiritual Program Coordinator
Board of Directors
Charmaine Hughes
Nancy Savoia
Matt Bunkowski
Charlene Wunderlich
Mary Camille Lutz
Mary was hooked into Buddhism by the Thubten Norbu Ling’s resident teacher, Geshe Sherab, at both Ksitigarbha Center in Taos and in Santa Fe. She worked in higher and secondary education and now puts her skills to use at Thubten Norbu Ling as the Zoom Host Coordinator. She readily admits her attachment to a pair of well-worn pink western boots, to polka, waltz, or two-step. Mary and her dog, Sweet Diamond Jane, enjoy walking and hiking in northern New Mexico.
Jeremy Daniel Lewis
Jeremy met the FPMT community when FPMT was headquartered in Taos. He was part of the newly formed Kstitigarhba study group, now a FPMT center. Jeremy is from Rockport, Massachusetts and has lived in New Mexico since 2019. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon in the mid-nineties and from 2000 to 2007, he engaged with AmeriCorps fomenting positive youth development through conservation projects and urban gardening. Since 2007, he has been a public servant for New Mexico’s energy and land offices forwarding renewable energy.
Charlene Wunderlich
Charlene has been an active volunteer and member at our center since 2007, after attending her first teaching with Ven. Robina Courtin. Charlene has served as the Dharma shop manager, the Sunday morning meditation leader, and umdze for Geshe Sherab’s classes on Sundays. She has served on our board of directors since 2007. Charlene and her cat, Snow, regularly attend lots of classes at our center.
Nancy Savoia
Nancy began attending classes at Thubten Norbu Ling in 2014 and has served on the board of directors since 2016. She is the the People Care Manager and is available to our community to listen to praises, complaints, or both! She also recruits new team members for our various management departments. When she’s not working at our center, she works as a chiropractor in Los Alamos.
Matt Bunkowski
Matt works in the investment management industry and also co-owns the Wild Birds Unlimited Santa Fe store with his father. Matt joined Thubten Norbu Ling’s board of directors in 2019. He is passionate about community engagement and is actively involved in other non-profits including our sister FPMT center in California, Land of Medicine Buddha, as well Cooking with Kids in Santa Fe, Museum Foundation of New Mexico, and Kalamazoo College.
Matthew Cannella
Matthew Cannella is a Buddhist practitioner and filmmaker based out of Santa Fe New Mexico. Born and raised in Phoenix Arizona, Matthew received a B.A. in Cinema Television Critical Studies from the University of Southern California and continues to work in the southwest in media arts, communication, and digital filmmaking. His hobbies include cycling the New Mexico dessert, exploring museums, and board games with friends.
Deirdre Mitra
Deirdre found the FPMT in 1995 at Tushita Meditation Center in Dharamsala, India. A corporate paralegal by trade, she’s raised two kids with her husband Shankha. She lived and worked at Vajrapani Institute in Boulder Creek in California and then went back to corporate law in Silicon Valley. Special interest areas are institutional development, special-needs and adopted parenting, and a mom’s role in a Buddhist family. She likes to save animals from being killed.
Shankha Mitra
Shankha Mitra has been an aspiring Buddhist since the mid-1990s after Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche turned his mind towards the Dharma. He has been on the board of directors at Vajrapani and the FPMT’s Kadampa Center in Raleigh, North Carolina and has served as Spiritual Program Coordinator at Vajrapani. He is an FPMT Registered Teacher. By day he works as a computer scientist and in his spare time he enjoys playing the violin, participating in amateur chamber groups, and listening to opera. He lives in Santa Fe with his wife Deirdre.
Ven. Losang Dondrub
Ven. Dondrub began studying the Dharma at Drepung Loseling Institute in Atlanta in 2008. He took refuge vows from Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Jampa in 2011 and novice monk ordination vows in 2013. For seven years, Ven. Dondrub served FPMT’s Guhyasamaja Center in Washington DC as spiritual program coordinator and on the board of directors. Since early 2021 he has been working on the spiritual program at The Buddhist Center Thubten Norbu Ling where he also teaches and leads meditation. Recently, Ven. Dondrub moved from Washington DC to Santa Fe to become our new center manager.
Charmaine Hughes
Charmaine first encountered Tibetan Buddhism in 1999 at teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She is a student of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and has served Rinpoche’s center, Thubten Norbu Ling, since 2005, first as Spiritual Program Coordinator for three years and as Center Director, as well as on the board of directors, since 2019. For the past fifteen years she has also led weekly meditation sessions at the center. She is a licensed psychotherapist and an avid hiker and traveler — especially for Dharma!