Dr. Lobsang Sangay was born in Darjeeling, India in 1968, with a typical Shichak (settlement) background amidst fields, cows and chickens, fetching wood from the forest and helping his parents’ small business, including selling sweaters. In 1995, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Harvard Law School, where he subsequently received his LL.M. degree. Sangay spent 15 years at Harvard University, as a student and then as a senior fellow. He is the first Tibetan to become a Law Professor at Harvard.

In 2003, Sangay organized five conferences between Chinese and Tibetan scholars, including a meeting between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and thirty-five Chinese scholars at Harvard University.

In 2004, he became the first Tibetan to earn a S.J.D. degree from Harvard Law School and was a recipient of the 2004 Yong K. Kim’ 95 Memorial Prize for excellence for his dissertation, Democracy in Distress: Is Exile Polity a Remedy? A Case Study of Tibet’s Government-in-exile. In 2006, Sangay was selected as one of the twenty-four Young Leaders of Asia by the Asia Society, a global organization working to strengthen relationships and promote understanding among the people, leaders and institutions of Asia and the United States. Funded by Hao Ran foundation, Sangay was a Senior Fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School through 2011. He is an expert in Tibetan law and international human rights law.

On 10 March 2011, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama proposed changes to the exile charter to remove his position of authority within the organisation and devolve his political power to the elected leader, thus making the Kalön Tripa the highest-ranking office holder. On 27 April 2011, Sangay was elected Kalön Tripa of the Tibetan Government in Exile. Until the appointment of the new Education Kalön, Sangay undertook the additional responsibility of Health Kalön from 8^th August 2011 to 15^th September 2011.