As a Senior Lecturer in Botany I focused my work in the field of plant biotechnology, genetics and physiology. I coordinate two undergraduate courses: Plant Physiology, Plant bioinformatics and Plant cell and Biochemistry in the Open University. My research interest is in the field of Abiotic stress tolerance in plant giving particular attention to the rice. Besides, I am involved with university projects and several professional organizations including the Open University community outreach programme called Lifelong Learning for farmers (L3F) project which is funded by the Commonwealth of Learning.
Following summarizes the track record on my career development.
Passed out from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka with the BSc Special Degree in Botanywith First class honoursand two gold medals for being the best outstanding student and best performance for plant physiology and biochemistry, my first job was the Demonstrator in Botany. After completing two years in there, I joined the Department of Export Agriculture in Sri Lanka as an Assistant Director where I was entrusted to manage the crop development and extension programme. Selection for this post was based on the performance at highly competitive island-wide examination for Sri Lanka Scientific Service. After one year service as the Assistant Director of Export Agriculture, I joined the Open University of Sri Lanka as a Lecturer (probationary)in year 2005. Meantime, I completed Post-graduate Diploma in InformationTechnologywith a project on Bioinformatics. This was a preparative work for the long pathway of career development. I accrued sound knowledge in information systems management, programming and adopting IT for solving problems in biology. I also followed the certificate course in teaching in higher education in the University of Colombo
Then, I was in the University of York for my PhD research work in the field of salt tolerance in ricefrom 2007 under Commonwealth split-site PhD Scholarship Programme. I developed sound knowledge and skills on the physiological and biochemical screening of rice for abiotic stress tolerance (salt), transcriptomics, mutant screening, and functional validation of genes in heterologous expression systems, creation of breeding populations and screening for genetic effects associated with abiotic stress. Since this work was carried out in two different countries with different research cultures and facilities, it developed my capacity further to work in different cultures and under contrasting resource availability. After completing the PhD in 2012, I was promoted to the post of Senior Lecturer in Botanyin the OUSL where I have been devoting my time for teaching, research and administrative tasks for the last 8 years.
In 2014, I was chosen through a globally competitive recruitment scheme to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) as post-doctoral fellow in molecular biology and physiology. I was working on the discovery of genes for the trait called grain yield under drought in rice. My work was in the fields of molecular biology, bioinformatics and genomics. This also included RNA sequencing project too. I went through training programmes in SNP data analysis, RNS seq data analysis and statistics for breeding trials at IRRI. Besides my role in research at IRRI, in 2016, I became the president of the Association of Trainees, Scholars and Fellows of the IRRI (AFSTRI) of which the members are from nearly 20 nations. I was also appointed to the IRRI seminar committee in 2016.
As a senior course coordinator of the two courses offered by the Department of Botany for BSc degree programme I have been introducing new innovative teaching and learning methods based on both face to face, online and mobile modes to improve students’ learning. The online learning platform of plant physiology became the highly accessed site in the OUSL in 2012/13.
I have also been appointed to key positions in many committees at the faculty, university and national levels. Besides being involved with high level decision making, this provides good arena for me to network and interact with many scientists in different fields of knowledge and with attitudes. This immensely contributed to develop my soft skills to a greater scale.
I am looking forward to devote my intellectual capacity to develop the OUSL and the research on rice abiotic stress tolerance to achieve food security in the world. At the same time, I try my best to bring up my children to the level where they could serve the humanity far more better than their father.
