Rick McBride completed his PhD in Buddhist Studies in 2001 with a dissertation entitled, “The Domestication of Buddhism in Silla Korea: Buddhist Cults in Ancient Korean Society.” He subsequently held a Mellon Post-doctoral Fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis and a Fulbright grant. He previously taught at Brigham Young University, Hawaii and now teaches at Brigham University in Provo, Utah.

His first book, Domesticating the Dharma: Buddhist Cults and the Hwaŏm Synthesis in Silla Korea, was published by the University of Hawaii Press in 2007. He has also published:State and Society in Middle and Late Silla (Cambridge, Mass.: Korea Institute, Harvard University, 2010); Hwaom I: The Mainstream Tradition (Seoul: Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, 2013); Hwaom II:  Selected Works (Seoul: Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, 2013); Doctrine and Practice in Medieval Korean Buddhism: The Collected Works of Uich’on (Honolulu:  University of Hawai`i Press, 2017); The Culture and Thought of Koguryo (Seoul: Northeast Asia History Foundation, 2018) [translator]. His newest work is Aspiring to Enlightenment:  Pure Land Buddhism in Silla Korea (forthcoming Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2020).