Founders

Scholars and teachers

Ludo Rocher (1926–2016), PhD, JD, Aggr., University of Ghent, was Professor of Sanskrit, Comparative Philology, and Classics at the Free University of Brussels. He was the founding Director of the Center for the Study of South and Southeast Asia. He subsequently became Professor of Sanskrit and W. Norman Brown Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

He was a member of the Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences (Belgium), of the American Philosophical Society, and a Fellow of the Asiatic Society (Kolkata). He served as President of the American Oriental Society and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Institute of Indian Studies. Many of the students he taught and mentored in their studies and doctoral work have gone on to occupy eminent positions in academic institutions at home and across the world.

Rosane Rocher (1937–), PhD, Free University of Brussels, is Professor Emerita of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has served as Director of the South Asia Center and was the founding Director of the Program in Asian American Studies.

The Rochers’ lifelong contributions to Sanskrit studies and the history of Indology earned them the 2015 prize of the Fondation Colette Caillat of the Institut de France.