| Thubten Samphel | |
| Birth Date: | 1956 11, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Lhasa, Tibet Area, China |
| Death Place: | Bylakuppe, India |
| Nationality: | Tibetan |
| Occupation: | Writer Government official |
| Education: | Delhi University Columbia University |
Thubten Samphel (bo|ཐུབ་བསྟན་བསམ་འཕེལ; 2 November 1956 – 4 June 2022) was a Tibetan writer, journalist, and government official.[1] He worked as a secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was a spokesperson of the Central Tibetan Administration, based in Dharamshala. He also worked for the administration's think tank, Tibet Policy Institute.
Born in Lhasa in 1956, Samphel was the son of parents who worked as servants to the mother of the 14th Dalai Lama, Diki Tsering.[2]
Three years after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, Samphel left Tibet with his older brother. They arrived in Tingri before crossing the Chinese-Nepalese border into the Solukhumbu District.
Tsering Dolma, older sister of the 14th Dalai Lama, sent Samphel to school at the Tibetan Children's Villages before he joined Dr. Graham's Homes, a missionary school in Kalimpong. After his secondary studies, he attended St. Stephen's College, Delhi and Delhi University, where he earned a bachelor's and a master's degree in history.[3] While studying for his master's, he was employed in the office of, a secretary in the private office of the Dalai Lama.[2]
In 1980, Samphel became an official within the Tibetan government-in-exile. He was among the first group of Tibetan Fulbright Scholars to study in the United States, where he earned a degree in journalism from Columbia University.[2] In 1985, he was sent to Amdo by the Dalai Lama as part of the .[4] From 1999 to 2012, he was secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a spokesperson of the Central Tibetan Administration.[2] In 2012, he became director of the Tibet Policy Institute.[5] [6] In November 2018, he retired from the Central Tibetan Administration.[2]
Samphel wrote articles for numerous Tibetan, Indian, and foreign newspapers.[2] He authored the novel Falling through the roof.[2]
Thubten Samphel died in Bylakuppe on 4 June 2022.[7]