Short answers, pulled from the story.
Bhikkhu Analayo is a German-born Buddhist monk, scholar, and meditation teacher born in 1962. He is best known for comparative studies of Early Buddhist Texts as preserved across different early Buddhist traditions, including Pali, Chinese, Tibetan, and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit sources.
Analayo temporarily ordained in Thailand in 1990 and took pabbajja again in Sri Lanka in 1995 under Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Thero. His full upasampada ordination came in 2007 within the Sri Lankan Shwegyin Nikaya, with Pemasiri Thera of Sumathipala Aranya as his ordination acariya.
Analayo completed his PhD thesis at the University of Peradeniya in 2000 on the Satipatthana Sutta, the early Buddhist discourse on mindfulness. The thesis was later published as Satipatthana, the Direct Path to Realization.
Analayo is chief editor and one of the translators of the first English translation of the Chinese Madhyama-agama (Taisho 26). He has also undertaken an integral English translation of the Chinese Samyukta-agama (Taisho 99), which parallels the Pali Samyutta Nikaya.
Analayo supports bhikkhuni ordination for women, a stance he reached through studying early Buddhist texts on female monastics and the founding story of the bhikkhuni order. Full ordination for women remains a contested matter in both the Theravada and Tibetan traditions.
Analayo is co-founder of the Agama Research Group and a resident scholar at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. He has retired from his professorship but remains a member of the Numata Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg.