Ayya Santussika grew up on a farm in Indiana and moved to California after receiving a BS and MS in Computer Science. She worked for 15 years as a software engineer in Silicon Valley before dedicating her life to spiritual practice. In 1999, she began visiting monasteries in the US, Europe and Asia where she learned from master teachers mostly in the Ajahn Chah lineage. She trained as a minister and received a Masters of Divinity degree in 2002. She entered monastic life in 2005, primarily living at Amaravati and Chithurst Monasteries and Aloka Vihara. In 2012, she received bhikkhuni ordination and founded Karuna Buddhist Vihara located in Mountain View, California. She teaches Dhamma based on the Pali Canon in America and abroad and is a director for Buddhist Global Relief, a charitable organization striking at the roots of poverty and relieving chronic hunger and malnutrition.Link for Ayya Santussika’s Website: http://www.karunabv.org/