Adjunct Scientists

Our Admins

Senior Advisors

Adjunct Scientists

Lareef Zubair :: Principal Scientist


lareef

Dr. Lareef Zubair is the principal scientist of FECT from its inception. Previously, He was a PostDoctoral Associate in Mathematics and Engineering at Yale University, and in Climate Monitoring and Applications at the University Consortium for Atmospheric Science. He has also been a Senior Lecturer in Engineering at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Fundamental Studies, Sri Lanka. He worked as a Scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) and is attached to the Columbia University Water Center. His undergraduate education was at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and graduate work was at Yale University, U.S.A. He is interested in tropical climate, climate impacts and adaptation, in the application of climate information and colonialism and modernization.

P.Wickramagamage :: GIS, Soils and Hydrology


Prof. Wickramagamage

Prof. Wickramagamage is working as an Emeritus Professor of geography at the University of Peradeniya and Senior Research Scientist at FECT. He obtained his B.A in Geography at the University of Peradeniya and his Ph.D. in Physical Geology from the University of London. His main areas of research include GIS, soils, hydrology, climate and EIA on all of which he has published extensively. He has been a partner, collaborator and Principal Investigator at FECT on several proposals and grants such as the Rain Water Harvesting Project (Provention), Masters in Development Practice Project (MacArthur), AgMIP project (DfID) and the PEER projects on Water and Hazards (National Academy of Sciences, USAID).

Ranmalee Bandara :: Senior Research Scientist


Ranmalee

Ranmalee Bandara obtained a B.Sc in Surveying at the University of Sabaragamuwa, Sri Lanka in 2005 with first class honors and an M.Sc in Environmental Soil Science from the University of Peradeniya in 2008. Obtained her PhD Civil Engineering in 2014.She had supported the work on the project on rainwater harvesting.

P.H.D. Kusumawathie:: Senior Research Scientist

P.H.D. Kusumawathie

Dr. Kusum, a Senior Research Scientist at FECT is the Regional Malaria Officer covering Kandy and Nuwara Eliya Districts. She works on entomological surveillance of dengue while being seconded to the National Dengue Control Program. She has obtained her B.Sc in Zoology with honors from the University of Peradeniya and her M.S and Ph.D. from the same University in Parasitology and Epidemiology. She also has received a Masters in Health Economics from Chulangakon University in Thailand. She has worked for three decades in monitoring and control of infectious diseases and has maintained an active research program.

Mizna Mohamed :: Environmental Science (Maldives)


Mizna Mohamed

Dr. Mizna Mohamed has expertise on Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Meteorology acquired at Flinders University of South Australia and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. She is a specialist in coral reef resources and management with field work in the Maldives for her doctorate. She has undertaken work related to community engagement for the protection of coral reefs.

She has contributed to major planning interventions on climate change such as the first national communication, reviewing the Maldives National Adaptation Programme of Action for Climate Change, the National Project Manager for the Integrated Climate Change Strategy project executed by Ministry of Environment, Energy and Water, Maldives from 2005-2006 and as a Project Manager for National GHG Inventory and Vulnerability Assessment for the Maldives. She was attached to the Postgraduate Research Centre of Maldives National University as a Senior Lecturer from 2013 to 2016.

Admins

Rimza Zacky :: Accountant


Rimza

Rimza Zacky oversees the accounting system at FECT. She liaises with the Internal Auditor. She has 20 years of experience in accountancy and was previously attached to the accounting division for 17 years.

Ashara Nijamdeen ::Science Writer / Junior Research Scientist


Ashara

Ashara Nijamdeen works as Science Writer / Junior Research Scientist at FECT. She has completed requirements for the Bachelor of Industrial studies-Agriculture at The Open university of Sri Lanka. She has also followed the Advanced Certificate course in Human Resource Management and Services at NIBM.

Tuan E. Hadgie :: Administrative Officer


Tuan

Tuan Hadgie serves as the Administrative Officer of FECT since 2017. He previously served as an Administrative Officer at the Gemmological Museum, Kandy, and the Institute of International Education Lanka, the Operations Manager and Lecturer at the Gateway Computer Centre in Kegalle. He has qualified as an ICDL (International Computer Driving License) System Administrator and with International Pedagogical ICT Licentiate.

M. Z. Fathima Shakira :: Trainee Secretary


shakira

Shakira completed her Personal Secretary Course in National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority Kandy, Microsoft Office 2007 Package on MCCE, Previously she worked in the Science Dissemination & Education Unit at National Institution of Fundamental Studies Kandy as Trainee Secretary.

Kokila Wickramasinghe :: Junior Scientist (Statistics)

Kokila

Kokila is a Statistics and Operation Research undergraduate in the Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya. She has worked as an institutional trainee at Noritake Lanka Porcelain Pvt. (Ltd.), Matale. Kokila contributes to the statistical analysing role.

Senior Advisors

Neil Devadasan :: Consultant Systems Engineer and GIS

Neil Devadasan obtained his B.Sc. in Production Engineering from the University of Peradeniya and has trained in Systems Engineering and GIS at the Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI). He is a Director of the Polis Center which addresses common community problems and issues through innovating approaches in IT, GIS and other advanced technologies. Neil collaborates with FECT in producing an interactive map server for Sri Lanka and in establishing the Tsunami assistance portal. He helps in designing of our IT and web-based systems.

Sabry Razick :: Consultant, Scientific Computation

Sabry obtained his B.Sc. in Microbiology from the University of Kelaniya and after serving there as an Assistant Lecturer, he completed his M.Sc. in Bioinformatics at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, his Ph.D at the University of Oslo and is a post-doctoral scientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He has supported FECT scientific computation.

Sarith Mahanama :: Land Surface Modeling and Meteorological Remote Sensing

Sarith Mahanama obtained his B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the University of Peradeniya and his Ph. D from the University of Hong Kong. He has been attached to the NASA Land Surfacing Modeling group at Greenbelt, MD since 2001. Sarith implemented the Catchment Land Surface Model for Sri Lanka in collaboration with FECT. He led the project on Coastal Tidal Inlets for FECT.

Ajith Gunaratne :: Applied Mathematics

Ajith Gunaratne is an Assistant Professor in Mathematics at Florida A&M University. He holds a B.Sc. from the University of Peradeniya and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Iowa State University. He was a member of the computational mathematics group with L. Zubair at the Institute of Fundamental Studies previously. He collaborates with FECT on wind modeling and diagnostics.

Sri Ramany Sritharan :: Agriculturist

Ramany Sritharan received her B.Sc in Agriculture Science from University of Peradeniya and Masters in Irrigation Engineering and Management from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand. She served as a Tutor at the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Peradeniya, and as an Assistant Lecturer at the Eastern University, Sri Lanka. She worked as a Senior Research Assistant At Columbia University and developed databases for Sri Lanka at IRI for analysis through the data library.

Jude Fernando:: Environmental Social Scientist

Jude Fernando

Jude Fernando is a Senior Lecturer at Clark University in International Development and Social Change. While he has had interactions with our senior staff members for three decades, he is presently collaborating with FECT on proposals

Dr. Nelun Fernando :: Scientist and GIS

Nelun Fernando

Dr. Nelun Fernando developed a method for predicting and monitoring drought. Although it was developed for the island nation of Sri Lanka, the method is applicable to locations throughout the humid tropics where droughts occur due to insufficient rain during the monsoon rainy season. During the main rice cultivation seasons—the Maha, extending from October to March—drought can be predicted by forecasting the failure of two different rainfall regimes. Nelun's research showed that rainfall in October and November is inhibited when there are unusually strong westerly winds 1.5 km above the surface of the earth. Later in the season, from December through February, the rains that accompany the northeast monsoon will be abnormally weak when wind shear (the change of wind direction with height) is small. Nelun also found that monitoring an index of vegetation temperature derived from two satellite sensors—the Terra-MODIS Land Surface Temperature and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index products—is capable of providing near real-time monitoring of moisture stress during the Maha season. Nelun is extremely grateful for the Greenberg Fellowship noting that, "It gave me the opportunity to engage full time on my dissertation research shortly after I reached candidacy and enabled me to finish the Ph.D. degree program within four years.

Prof. Noel Aloysius, Ph.D. (Yale) :: Hydrologist

Noel Aloysius

Noel Aloysius is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical, Biological & Chemical Engineering. His research interests include: Hydro climatology with emphasis on modelling at watershed to regional scale; water and food security assessment; coupled human-natural systems; environmental change; land and water management in agriculture and remote-sensing for natural resource management.

Sanjaya Rathnayake :: Research Scientist  

Sanjaya obtained his B.Sc. degree from Faculty of Information Technology, University of Moratuwa, in 2009 and is reading for his M Sc.(Applied Statistics) at the Post Graduate Institute of Science, University of Peradeniya. He is following “Top CIMA” at Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. He worked as IT Specialist at FECT and Visiting Lecture at University of Moratuwa, Faculty of Information Technology on Java Network Programming. At FECT, he has worked as a statistician and IT specialist.