Somseen Chanawangsa obtained a PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Before his retirement, he was an associate professor of English as a foreign language at Chulalongkorn University Language Institute in Bangkok. Since 2000, he has been a fellow of the Royal Institute of Thailand, where he served on its advisory panel from 2004–2009. He is now a freelance lecturer, writer and translator. Among his research interests are linguistics, translation, lexicography and English for Buddhist studies. All these are integrated into his long-term project to translate into English some important Thai-language books on Theravada Buddhism.