Overall Project Team:

Benno Blumenthal, Data Library Manager, IRI

Prithiviraj Fernando – Associate Research Scientist, CERC & Wildlife Trust (Co-PI)

Fred Koontz – Deputy Exec. Director for Conservation, Wildlife Trust & CERC

Marc Levy – Associate Director for Science Applications, CIESIN

Herath Manthrithillake, Dir. Environmental & Forestry Div., Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka

John Mickelson – GIS\Remote Sensing Specialist, CIESIN (Co-PI)

Neil Ward – Head of Forecast Development, IRI

Raman Sukumar – Assoc. Prof. Indian Inst. Of Science, & Adj. Faculty CERC & Wildlife Trust

Lareef Zubair- Associate Research Scientist, IRI (Co-PI)



Climate and Hydrology Project Team:  

Benno Blumenthal received his Ph.D. degree in Physical Oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1987. 
Blumenthal is the author and maintainer of the IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library, which makes climate data highly accessible over the World Wide Web.

Herath Manthrithillake formerly, Director of the Environment and Forestry Division of the Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka. He supervises the environmental 
management of key parts of the elephant habitat within the Mahaweli basin in Sri Lanka and manages human-elephant conflict regularly. Since last year, he has been 
serving as the Director of the Monitoring and Planning Unit of the Mahaweli Authority.

Neil Ward is the Head of Forecast Development at the IRI. He has extensive experience in operational forecast products and systems from his previous tenure with centers in Europe. Ward focuses on the important link between forecast products and user applications. In this role, he works in the field with collaborators to better understand requirements, and also with the forecast research and production team at the IRI, to ensure the feedback users provide becomes incorporated, whenever possible, into improved forecast developments.

 Lareef Zubair- Associate Research Scientist in Climate Applications Research at the IRI. He has carried out work in the fields of data analysis, environmental impact assessment particularly of water resources projects and climatic and hydrological analysis for Sri Lanka. At the IRI, he has initiated and managed a pilot project on the use of seasonal climate prediction for water and environmental resources management in the Mahaweli River Basin in Sri Lanka.                   


Staff in Sri Lanka

Heli Bulathsinhala,  Research Assistant - Hydroclimatic Analysis, is a graduate of Civil Engineering from the University of Peradeniya and has  evaluated climatic data quality in Sri Lanka.

Upamala Tennakone, GIS Operator, has over 12 years of experience as a GIS operator with short training in England and extensive work with ArcInfo and ArcView GIS systems. She is producing high-resolution climatologies at present.

Chanaka Wickremasinghe, Data Entry and Management, He has completed his (High) schooling and is pursuing a diploma course in desktop publishing. He is compiling hydroclimatic data from a variety of published sources and from various government departments.