Petra Tlčimuková is an AKTION Fellow in Religious Studies. She is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Hradec Králové (Czech Republic). She also teaches at the Department of Ethics, Psychology and Charity Work, Faculty of Theology at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice as well as at the Department of Religious Studies of Palacký University. She holds a B.A. (2009) and an M.A. (2012) in Religious Studies from Masaryk University in Brno, and a Ph.D. (2019) in Sociology from Palacký University in Olomouc. Areas of her academic interest cover the sociology of religions; new religious movements; Buddhism in the west; and nature and religion. She has collaborated on various research projects including, among others, "Continuity and Discontinuity of Religious Memory in the Czech Republic" funded by the Czech Science Foundation (2014–2016) and "Forging a Scientific Team and International Networking in the Field of Chinese Studies" (2014–2016) funded by the European Social Fund and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in the Czech Republic. She has also received a number of research and study grants and lectured at various universities abroad. While at the Department of Religious Studies, she carries out research on "Transnational Religious Activities of Sōka Gakkai International," focusing specifically on the ties between the Austrian and the Czech branches of this Japanese new religious movement.
