Deshamanya Emeritus Professor WD Lakshman

Prof. W.D. Lakshman received his undergraduate education at the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya and his D.Phil. at the University of Oxford. An Emeritus professor of the University of Colombo and a former Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, he is a prolific researcher who has numerous publications to his name. His research has focused on Political economy, the Economic Development of South Asia, Japanese Investments in South Asia, and the Socio-Economic Impact of Structural Adjustment Policies. A scholar of international repute, he has served as a visiting professor in several academic institutions in the Netherlands, Japan, Yugoslavia, and India. Prof. Lakshman was also awarded Deshamanya national honours in 2005.

Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda

​Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda is an internationally recognized scholar and an Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Colombo. A previous Treasurer of SSA, he has been associated with the institute for almost four decades. A widely published scholar in both English and Sinhala, Prof. Uyangoda’s publications span a wide range of topics including democracy, local governance, political reforms, state reforms, social inclusion and exclusion, political violence, human rights, ethnic politics, and conflict resolution.

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 SSA. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from the University of Colombo under the NUFU/ NOMA fellowship scheme of the University of Oslo, Norway. A leading survey researcher in Sri Lanka with over two decades of experience, Dr. Peiris has 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 also part of numerous international collaborations as well as the current country representative of the ‘World Association for Public Opinion Research’ (WAPOR) and ‘Democracy Barometer.’

Dr. Kumari Jayawardene

Dr. Kumari Jayawardena is a leading and pioneering feminist scholar in Sri Lanka. A founding member of SSA, she is also an internationally acclaimed academic whose work on Third-World feminism is widely cited even today. Having obtained her PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE), she has made significant contributions to research on labour and capital, peasant movements, women’s studies, gender equality, plantation workers, nationalism, and ethnic identity. Some of her work have been translated into Sinhala and Tamil.

Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran

Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran is a Trustee and former Executive Director of the Women’s Education and Research Centre (WERC), and a Board member of the Noolaham Foundation and the Social Development and Research Organization. She has also served on the Council of the University of Peradeniya and has represented Sri Lanka in the UN Women Civil Society Advisory Group from 2015-2017. She obtained her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Vrije, Amsterdam and has published on issues of gender equality and equity, feminist research methodology, women’s empowerment, women and religion, women in politics, and violence against women.

Prof. Neloufer De Mel

Prof. Neloufer de Mel is the Chair Professor of English at the Department of English, University of Colombo. Her teaching and research publications are in the disciplinary fields of cultural, postcolonial, gender, and performance studies. She has been the Head of the Department of English and the Director of Studies of the Faculty of Arts, University of Colombo and 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 which works towards promoting Sri Lankan literature in English and has served on many juries at national and international theatre and film festivals.

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. 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.