Vice Chancellor’s Awards for Research Excellence 2016
Prof. Senaka Rajapakse
Postgraduate Institute of Medicine
Senaka Rajapakse is Professor in the Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Colombo, and Honorary Consultant Physician, National Hospital Colombo. He graduated with First Class honours from the University of Colombo in 1993, winning many awards and distinctions. He has the MD and MRCP(UK), and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London and Edinburgh), the American College of Physicians and the Ceylon College of Physicians. He has held many posts in the University of Colombo, and is currently Deputy Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine. He has over 120 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and 1800 citations with an H-index of 23. His main research interest is in tropical infectious diseases, and he has established collaborative research through the Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Colombo. He has received research grants from the NRC, NSF and University of Colombo, and supervises several masters and doctoral research students. He has received numerous research awards, including Presidential Awards for Research, the University of Colombo Award for Excellence in Research in 2012 and 2016, and the CVCD Excellence Award for the Most Outstanding Senior Researcher Award in Health Sciences in 2016.
Dr. Carukshi Arambepola
Faculty of Medicine
Carukshi Arambepola is a senior lecturer and a board certified specialist in community medicine. She graduated from the University of Colombo with MBBS second class honours and pursued a career in community medicine. She was awarded the gold medal for best performance at MSc in Community Medicine in 2000. Her research interests have been in the field of epidemiology of non-communicable diseases with a public health perspective. Her MD thesis in 2004 was on abdominal obesity and its relationship with cardiovascular disease risk. During her overseas training in the department of public health at the University of Oxford, she researched into nutrient profiling and validation of models to assess healthiness of diet. She was awarded a commonwealth fellowship in 2014 to explore novel technology enabled approaches in lifestyle modification. Her unique contribution to NCD research was as the sole corresponding member representing Sri Lanka and co-author in the 2008-2010 Global Burden of Disease Project to produce comprehensive estimates of nutrient estimates. She has been the recipient of NRC President’s award for excellence in research on 8 consecutive years and 2 NRC merit awards. She has presented her work in abstract form in over 150 scientific conferences and won many international and national awards/prizes. She is the co-editor of the journal of College of Community Physicians of Sri Lanka. She has supervised 13 PhD, MPhil and MD theses and is a resource person in applied research in higher education institutions, and has been the coordinator of the student research program of the faculty since 2008. She has published 58 original research articles in SC indexed journals. She has 1344 citations and an H index of 17.
Dr. O.V.D.S.J. Weerasena
Institute of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
Dr. Ovitigala Vithanage Don Sisira Jagathpriya Weerasena is currently a Senior lecturer at the Institute of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IBMBB), University of Colombo. Jagathpriya weeerasena graduated from Faculty of Science University of Colombo in 1996 and obtained PhD from the Faculty of science, University of Colombo in year 2002. Dr.Weerasena served as a Research Scientist in Genetic Center, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala Sweden and as a Research associate in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine Colombo. In 2005, he joined the IBMBB, University of Colombo as a Senior Lecturer in Molecular techniques. Dr. Weerasena is a recipient of several research collaborative grants from funding agencies/Institutions (NSF and NRC). In addition he has research collaborations with many research institutions and private sector institutions in Sri Lanka. He has trained many PhD, MPhil & MSc students, some of whom are serving different Institutions in Sri Lanka and overseas. Dr.Weerasena has received several awards for his research including Presidential Research Award, National Research Council Merit awards for research and the National Science Foundation Research Awards.
He has been serving as a coordinator for MSc in Molecular Life Sciences program and Scholarship programms for international students and as the secretary for Research and Higher Degrees committee of the IBMBB.He has served as a resource person for many national and international workshops on Molecular biology and Bioinformatics and as a Reviewer for many National and international journals and symposia, a secretary to the council of the Institute of Biology Sri Lanka (IOBSL). He is a Section Editor for Sri Lankan Journal of Biology, and currently a council member of IOBSL. His current research areas include studying Genetic diversity of crop plants species and development of molecular markers. Investigation of Bioactivities of natural products, molecular characterization of microbes, development of molecular based species identification methods, cloning, expression and characterization of recombinant proteins. He has published his work extensively in International Journals of high impact factor.
Professor Arosha S. Adikaram
Faculty of Management & Finance
Professor Arosha S Adikaram is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Human Resources Management at the Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Colombo. Dr. Adikaram graduated from the University of Colombo in 2001 with a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree. She obtained her Master of Arts in Labour studies and PhD in HRM, from the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Colombo in 2006 and 2010 respectively. She has held many posts in the University of Colombo, including University Coordinator for “soft skills element” of HETC Grant. Dr Adikaram has many publications in peer-reviewed journals and published several text books and book chapters. Also she has received a number of awards locally and internationally honoring her contribution to the academia and to the industry. Further, Dr Adikaram has served as a resource person in many local and international forums and conferences. Her main research interest resides with industrial relations, specially trade unionism, gender, and harassment at workplace, and supervises several masters and doctoral research students. She has received fellowships from International Labour Organization, Genenva; University of New South Wales, Australia; Sri Lankan Foundation and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation.
Dr. P. Kamal Perera
Institute of Indigenous Medicine
Dr Pathirage Kamal Perera achieved a Bachelor of Ayurveda Medicine and Surgery with honours at university of Colombo in 2003 and achieved Master’s Degree to PhD in Pharmacology at China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China. he specialized in Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Immunology in his postgraduate studies. Further, he did Diploma in Research & Development of Products to Meet Public Health Needs, Japan as Post-Doctoral training in 2013. He was Certified and trained in Pharmacovigilance and Drug Safety at Uppsala World Health Organization Monitoring Center, Sweden in 2016. Currently, he is working as a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Dravyaguna Vignana (Ayurveda Pharmacology and Pharmaceutics ) and coordinator for postgraduate studies in IIM. Further, he works as a secretary for Ethics Review committee in IIM and a member of the ethics review committee in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. He is an eminent consultant physician at the National Ayurveda Teaching hospital, Borella.
He contributed to Develop Unit for Research Developments for Ayurveda Products as a research and commercial arm at IIM. In 2015 and 2016 he consulted on to Develop Intellectual Property Rights for Traditional Medicine project with World Health Organization (SEARO). He delivered many guest lectures and keynote speeches within the Ayurveda and western medicine communities. Has presented and published many papers at local and international conferences and journals. He organized and coordinated many national and international conferences for globalised Sri Lankan Ayurveda medicine. He won awards for research presentations both internationally and locally for scientific publications and research. Also received several research grants. He innovates pharmaceutical and cosmoceutical Ayurveda products collaborate with cooperate sector. He supervises research of Special Degrees /Post Graduate Diploma /MSc/MD/MPhil/PhD readers collaborate with the Faculty of Graduate Studies at University of Colombo, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, University of Kelaniya, University of Peradeniya, Kothalawela Defense University, Institute of Chemistry and Institute of Indigenous Medicine, University of Colombo. He serves as a reviewer and Editorial board member of peer review International journals. Currently collaboratively conducting research works with Federation University in Australia on a project that aims to validate Mobile Phone App with Ayurveda medicine concepts (Prakriti/ Body constitution) and architecture for Ayurvedic Electronic Health Records.
Professor G.K.A. Dias
University of Colombo School of Computing
Professor G.K.A. Dias is a Senior Lecturer attached to the Department of Information Systems Engineering of the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), Mr. Dias obtained his B.Sc in Physical Science from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1982. He obtained his Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Studies from the University of Essex, UK in 1986 and MPhil in Computer Science from University of Wales,UK in 1995. Currently he is an active member of the modelling and simulation research group of UCSC. This group has conducted several researches of national importance in collaboration with Sri Lanka Army, Navy and Airforce. The success of his research work is highlighted by 30+ research papers/book chapters and numerous research awards during last three years. The following are some of the selected research work done during last three years.
- Co-Investigator- “SIYARA Harbour Vessel Traffic Management System”, Sri Lanka Navy. eSwarbhimani – Winner, Best e-Content Applications in the category e-Science and Technology, 2014, Manthan Award, Certificate of Recognition, 2014
- Research Consultant and Person In-charge- “Air Traffic Control Training Simulator”. Project jointly done with the Center for Research and Development(CRD), Ministry of Defense.
- Research Consultant and Person In-charge of the K8-Flight Simulation project jointly done with CRD Ministry of Defense and the Sri Lanka Air force. Won Bronze award under Education & Training category (NBQSA) -2015.
- Co-investigator- “COP Sayura, the three dimensional Coastal Surveillance System for Sri Lanka Navy” Won NSF Technology Award of Excellence 2016.
- Principal Investigator- Graphical and Haptic Simulation of Gallbladder for Laparoscopic Surgery Training.
- TravelMeter -ICT Enabled Solution for Forecasting Tourism Demand in Sri Lanka – This is a Collaborative research project done with the assistance of the Tourist Board of Sri Lanka and Department of Statistics, University of Colombo. Winner -Culture & Tourism category– e-Swabhimani 2016.