Professor Thashi Chang

Thashi Chang holds the position of Professor in Neurology in the Department of Clinical Medicine of the University of Colombo and serves as an honorary consultant neurologist at the Professorial Unit in Medicine at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka.

His educational journey commenced at DS Senanayake Vidyalaya, Colombo. He represented the school Rugby teams of under 13, under 15 and captained the First Fifteen (under 19) Rugby team. He was the school Head Prefect from 1987 to 1988. He graduated from the Colombo Medical Faculty with first class honours and Distinctions in ten of the thirteen subjects. He was awarded 20 medals and awards including Gold medals in Medicine, Surgery, Paediatrics, Pharmacology, Parasitology, Physiology and Final MBBS. He was elected the ‘Student of the year’ of the University of Colombo and emerged first in the order of merit among all medical graduates in Sri Lanka in 1996. He represented both the Medical Faculty and University Rugby teams and was awarded University colors for Rugby.

He obtained his MD(Medicine) in 2002, MRCP(UK) in 2004 and MRCP(UK)(Neurology) in 2016. He was Board certified as a Specialist in Neurology in 2005. He was elected as a Fellow of the Ceylon College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 2013. He was awarded the Commonwealth Scholarship in 2003 to read for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Neurology at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom which he completed in 2007. During this time, he also trained in Clinical Neurology at the Radcliffe Infirmary and the John Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust in Oxford. He served as the Clinical Lecturer in Neurology in the University of Oxford for a brief period and has been an Academic Visitor of the University of Oxford.

Professor Chang has the distinction of being appointed as the first Professor in Neurology of the University of Colombo in 2016. His contributions to research have been acknowledged with several President’s Awards for research, the award of Excellence in Research of the University of Colombo and the Graduate Scholarship of St Hugh’s College of the University of Oxford.

Professor Chang has delivered the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) Oration, the EV Pieris Memorial Oration of the Ceylon College of Physicians and the JB Peiris Oration of the Association of the Sri Lankan Neurologists. He has been honored with invitations to speak at prestigious events such as the annual meeting of the Association of British Neurologists in Edinburgh, UK in 2019, the Asian and Oceanian Parkinson’s disease and Movement Disorders Congress in 2021 and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh’s Neurology symposium in Edinburgh, UK, where he delivered the Sir Byrom Bramwell Lecture in 2022.

He has served as the Secretary of the Specialty Board in Neurology and the Board of study in Sports Medicine of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine coordinating the development of curricula and prospectuses in postgraduate training in Neurology, Neurophysiology and Medical rehabilitation.

He is a founder member of the Sri Lanka Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders, the Movement Disorder Society of Sri Lanka and the National Stroke Association of Sri Lanka. He has been a Council member, Co-Editor and Joint Secretary of the Association of Sri Lankan Neurologists and was elected its President 2019 – 2020.