Expert Resource Panel
Prof. Nira Wickramasingha - DPhil (Oxon), Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne
Prof. Nira Wickramasinghe is the Professor of Modern South Asian Studies at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, in the Netherlands. Her primary interests are identity politics, everyday life under colonialism and the relationship between state and society in modern South Asia
Dr. Shamara Wettimuny - DPhil – History (Oxon), MSc (LSE), BSc (LSE)
Prof. Nira Wickramasinghe is the Professor of Modern South Asian Studies at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, in the Netherlands. Her primary interests are identity politics, everyday life under colonialism and the relationship between state and society in modern South Asia
Dr. Romesh Ranawana - DPhil – AI (Oxon), Clarendon Scholar, BSc (University of Peradeniya)
Dr Romesh Ranawana is CEO and Founder of Enterprise Machine Learning (Pvt) Ltd. Enterprise Machine Learning advises and consults several multi-national organizations on scaling their AI and Machine Learning capabilities
Mr. Murtaza Jafferjee - MSc (University of Colombo), CFA,BSc
Murtaza Jafferjee is an investment professional with over 25 years of industry experience. He has previously been a director of the Colombo Stock Exchange, Nations Trust Bank and Serendib Hotels PLC.
Mr. Umesh Moramudali - MSc (University of Warwick), BSc (University of Colombo),
Umesh Moramudali is a lecturer of economics at the University of Colombo whose research focuses on public debt, public finance, economic development, political economy, and taxation. He is also a Chevening scholar.
Mr. Andrew Fowler-Watt – MA (Cambridge)
Andrew Fowler-Watt was born and educated in the UK. He won scholarships to Eton and Cambridge, where he studied English and was a Choral Scholar at St John’s College. .he served as the Principal of Colombo International School and The British School and the principal of Trinity College, Sri Lanka, one of the largest and most prestigious schools in the country.
Prof. Lakshman Ratnayake - MSc (Birmingham), BSc
Professor Lakshman L. Ratnayake who is the current Chairman/Chancellor of Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) is a Senior Professor of Civil Engineering as well in the Institute. He is an Emeritus Professor at University of Moratuwa. He was a Professor and Senior Professor in the
Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa.
Mr. David Boehm - MBA (Boston), BA (New York)
Mr. David Boehm is a committed educator, technologist, and social entrepreneur. He currently works as the Director of Technology at British School in Colombo and Board Chair, Teach First Sri Lanka. Co-founded public charter school (Inwood Academy) in 2010, serving as CFO/COO/CTO
Ms. Gayanthi Ranatunga - MPhil (Trinity College Dublin) and LLM (University of Bristol), MA, BA (Wichita State University)
Ms. Gayanthi Ranatunga is a Political Science Research Consultant and Lawyer whose research focuses on politics and governance. She has worked as a Research Consultant for the Center for Policy Alternatives, the INFORM Human Rights Documentation Center and the Human Rights Center. She was the recipient of the Rotary Peace Fellowship 2021.
Prof. Savithri Goonasekara - MA (Harvard), BSc (University of Peradeniya)
Professor Goonasekara is one of the most eminent jurists in Sri Lanka and a social activist. She has done outstanding research on gender studies and human rights in South Asia. She was the first female Professor of Law to be appointed at the Open University of Sri Lanka in 1983. She worked as the first female Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo from 1999 until 2002
Prof. Nayani Melegoda - PhD (Leeds), MA (Canada), BA (Colombo)
Professor Nayani Melegoda is the senior professor of international relations at the University of Colombo. She serves as the Executive Director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies in Sri Lanka.
Dr. Gehan Gunatilleke - DPhil (Oxon), LLM (Harvard), MSc (Oxon), LLB (Colombo)
Dr. Gehan Goonathilaka is a lawyer specialising in Sri Lankan law, and international law, and a founding partner at LexAG, a Colombo-based law firm specialising in corporate, commercial, and intellectual property law. He was a former advisor to Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2015-
2018). He’s a Junior Research Fellow, Pembroke College,Oxford.
Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarna - PhD (Purdue), BSc (Kent), MSc (Kent)
Sanjiva Weerawarana is a CEO, software developer and open-source software evangelist. He is known for his work on Web Services standards including WSDL, BPEL, and WS-Addressing. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of WSO2, an open-source middleware company, and creator of the
Ballerina programming language.
Mr. Vijitha Nanayakkara - CIM
Mr. Vijitha Nanayakkara is a market researcher who is also the CEO of Aavya Research. He also heads the RISE UP School Nutrition program. He is a fully qualified member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Ms. Sarah Kabir - MSc (LSE), BSc (Bristol)
Sarah is a researcher and author who specialises in the areas of peace building and reconciliation. She has worked amidst a range of complex cultural contexts with diverse organisations. Currently Sarah is leading a documentary project that will explore and highlight critical moments in Sri Lanka’s post-independence history that have been largely overlooked in
the mainstream or education curriculum.
Dr. Chandanamali Punchihewa - PhD (Arizona), BSc (University of Colombo)
Dr. Chandanamali Punchihewa is a scientist with extensive
experience in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Drug Discovery.
Founded Genelabs Medical (Pvt) Ltd in order to perform highcomplexity
genetic tests that have not been available in Sri Lanka
Dr. Rohan Pethiyagoda - MPhil (University of Sussex), BSc (University of London),
Dr. Rohan Pethiyagoda was responsible for the discovery and/or description of almost 100 new species of vertebrates from Sri Lanka, has a number of fish and amphibians named after him, has penned a number of books, is a Rolex laureate, and most recently, the recipient of the prestigious Linnean
Medal for Zoology 2022
Prof. Nalin Kulatileka - PhD (MIT), MSc (Harvard), BSc (Imperial College UK)
Nalin Kulatilaka, Associate Director at the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS), is the Wing Tat Lee Family, Professor of Management and Professor of Finance at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, Director of the Impact Measurement & Allocation Program, and serves as the Co-Director of the Susilo Institute for Ethics in the Global Economy
Dr. Irvin Studin - PhD (York University), MA (Oxon), MA (LSE),
Dr. Studin was a professor and program director at the School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto from 2009 until 2014, Studin was a visiting professor at leading schools of public policy in North America, Europe and Asia. He was a member of the small team that wrote Canada’s first-ever national security policy in 2004.
Prof. Edward Vickers - PhD
Prof Vickers serves as the UNESCO Chair on Education for Peace, Social Justice and Global Citizenship. After almost a decade at the Institute of Education in London (now part of UCL), he moved to Kyushu University in 2012. He is the author and editor of many books on the history and politics of education in contemporary Asia.
Prof. Izhar Oplatka - PhD
Izhar Oplatka is a professor of Educational Administration and Leadership at The School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Israel. Prof. Oplatka’s research focuses on the lives and career of school teachers and educational leaders, educational marketing, emotions, and the foundations of educational administration as a field of study.
Dr. Ruvan Weerasinghe - Ph.D (University of Wales), M.Sc (University of Wales), B.Sc (University of Colombo)
Dr. Ruvan Weerasinghe is Head of Data Science at Informatics Institute of
Technology (IIT) He is involved in education reform through exploring innovative delivery of content; researcher in human language processing with a view to increasing accessibility to information for all – and particularly in machine translation as a contribution to breaking down barriers.