Deshamanya Emeritus Professor WD Lakshman
Professor W. D. Lakshman is a Professor Emeritus, at the University of Colombo. He held the positions of Head, of the Department of Economics, Dean, of the Faculty of Graduate Studies (1992-94), and Vice-Chancellor (1994-99), at the University of Colombo. Prof. Lakshman has been a prolific researcher. He has authored numerous research papers on a wide range of topics including Political economy, the Economic Development of South Asia, Japanese Investments in South Asia, and the Socio-Economic Impact of Structural Adjustment Policies in Sri Lanka. A textbook in Economics by Prof. Lakshman in Sinhala Medium has been used extensively by generations of Sri Lankan students. At different times in his academic career, Professor Lakshman has been a visiting professor in several foreign academic institutions in the Netherlands, Japan, Yugoslavia, and India. Professor Lakshman has also served as a Member, of the Presidential Commission on Finance and Banking, 1990, the Senior Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Finance and Planning (2008-09), a Member, of the National Economic Council (2008-10), Chairman, Presidential Commission on Taxation (2009-10). Chairman, Institute of Policy Studies (2010-15), Vice Chancellor, Sanasa University Institute, Kegalle (2014-19), and the Chairman, of the Committee of Experts appointed by the President to examine the Sri Lanka – Singapore Free Trade Agreement in 2018.
Dr. Kumari Jayawardene
Dr. Kumari Jayawardena is a leading and pioneering feminist scholar. She has made significant contributions to research in labor and capital, peasant movements, women’s studies and gender equality, plantation workers, nationalism, and ethnic identity. She has published a number of books on these topics, some of which have been translated into Sinhala and Tamil.
Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda
Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda is an internationally recognized scholar and Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Colombo. He has been associated with the Social Scientists’ Association for a number of years and currently holds the position of Treasurer of the Association. Prof. Uyangoda’s publications span a wide range of subjects and he has published a number of books, book chapters, and articles in both Sinhala and English on a number of topics ranging from democracy and local governance, political reforms, state reform, social inclusion and exclusion to violence, human rights, ethnic politics, and conflict resolution. Prof. Uyangoda has been an important actor in a number of different attempts to resolve Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict including being a member of the Government’s negotiation team during the 1995 peace talks.
Dr. Pradeep N. Peiris
Dr. Pradeep Peiris is Head and Senior Lecturer of the Department of Political Science and Public Policy, University of Colombo, and Director and Treasurer of the Social Scientists’ Association, Colombo. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2014 under the NUFU/ NOMA fellowship scheme of the University of Oslo, Norway. He is currently a Fellow in the research consortium “Reversing the Gaze: Towards Post-Comparative Area Studies, led by the Universities of Basel, Zurich, and Edinburgh, with collaborators from Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. Dr. Peiris has most recently authored the book Catch-All Parties and Party-Voter Nexus in Sri Lanka (Palgrave Macmillan) and edited the book titled Is the Cure Worse than the Disease? Reflections on COVID Governance in Sri Lanka (Centre for Policy Alternatives). He has also published on a wide array of subjects ranging from electoral politics to opinion polling, gender, liberal economy, and the democratic discourse in Sri Lanka. He is a leading survey researcher in Sri Lanka with over two decades of experience. He is the country representative of the ‘World Association for Public Opinion Research’ (WAPOR) and ‘Democracy Barometer’. His current teaching and research engagements focus on Political Theory, the Philosophy of Science, Quantitative Research, Democracy and Democratization, and Research in the Social Sciences.
Prof. Neloufer De Mel
Prof. Neloufer de Mel is a Senior Professor of English (Chair) at the Dept. of English, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her teaching and research publications are in the disciplinary fields of cultural, postcolonial, gender, and performance studies. She has been the Head, Dept. of English and the Director of Studies of the Faculty of Arts, University of Colombo has held several distinguished research fellowships at international universities and academic institutes including Yale, the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, the Universities of Zurich, New York, Technical University Dresden, and the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, USA. She is also the Chair of the Gratiaen Trust, founded by Michael Ondaatje (a Canadian author of Sri Lankan origin), which works towards promoting Sri Lankan literature in English and has served on many juries at national and international theatre and film festivals.
Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran
Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran is a Trustee and the former Executive Director of the Women’s Education and Research Centre, Council Member of the Social Scientists’ Association and Board member of the Noolaham Foundation and the Social Development and Research Organization. She also serves on the Council of the University of Peradeniya and represents Sri Lanka in the UN Women Civil Society Advisory Group (2015-2017). Her qualifications include a BA from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka; an MA in Women’s Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands; and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Vrije, Amsterdam. Her scholarly contributions cover issues of gender equality and equity, feminist research methodology, women empowerment, women and religion, women in politics, and violence against women.
Prof. Farzana Haniffa
Prof. Farzana Haniffa is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colombo and was a Smuts visiting fellow in Commonwealth studies at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge (2018/19). She obtained her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University, New York in 2007. Her research and activist interests have concentrated on the social and political history of Muslim communities and on gender politics in Sri Lanka. She has published on the Islamic reform movements, the history of minority involvement in electoral politics and the 2001 peace process, Northern Muslims’ place in discourses regarding return, resettlement, and reconciliation, and on the post-war mobilizing of anti-Muslim rhetoric.