Keynotes
The keynotes at JUICE-2012 will be delivered in the morning of Friday July 20.
| Track A: Agriculture | |
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Dr. Karim Maredia Professor, Entomology |
Is a Professor with the Institute of International Agriculture at Michigan State University and Program Director of the Institute’s World Technology Access Program (WorldTAP). He received his Ph.D. degree in Integrated Pest Management and Plant Breeding from University of Arkansas in 1985. Prior to joining MSU, he worked from 1986-89 at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico. He is one among the active team of Michigan State University (MSU) developing collaboration with University of Jaffna, organized training staff of faculty of agriculture at MSU and advices towards developing various units at the faculty of agriculture, University of Jaffna through collaborative program. |
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Professor B. Marambe |
Graduated from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka in 1985 obtained B.Sc. Agriculture degree with Second Class Upper Division Honours, and joined the Faculty of Agriculture of the same university as a Probationary Lecturer on 31st August 1986. Promoted to the grade of Senior Lecturer in 1993 upon obtaining M.Agr. and D.Agr. degrees from Hiroshima University, Japan (in 2001 and 2003, respectively) in the field of Plant Environmental Sciences (with special focus on Weed Science). Promoted to the Grade of Professor in Crop Science (main field of study: Weed Science) on merit, in 2003. Served as the Lecturer-in-Charge of the University Experimental Station (1994-1997), Head of the Department of Crop Science (2001-2003) and Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture (2003-2009). Appointed as the Chairman of the Asia Pacific Weed Science Society (APWSS), the professional scientific body of the weed scientists in the Asia-Pacific region, for the period 2005-2007.
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| Track B: Applied Sciences and Technology | |
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Professor Mahesan Niranjan BSc (Peradeniya, 1982), MEE (Eindhoven, 1985), PhD (Cambridge, 1990) |
Is a Professor of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, UK. Prior to this appointment, he has held faculty positions at the Universities of Cambridge (Lecturer, 1990 - 1998) and Sheffield (Professor of Computer Science, 1999 - 2008). At the University of Sheffield, he has served as Head of the Department of Computer Science (2001-2004) and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering (2006-2008). His research interests are in the subject of Machine Learning, in which he has worked on the algorithmic and applied aspects of the problem. His current research has a strong focus on Computational Biology. More information about the speaker can be found at: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/people/mn |
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| Track C: Commerce and Management | |
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Dr. D.M. Semasinghe |
Is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Commerce & Financial management in the Faculty of Commerce & Management Studies at University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. He received his B,Com and M.Com Degree at University of Kelaniya and PhD Degree in Queensland University of Technology, Australia. In addition to this he has completed the FDPM at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabadh. His primary research interest is entrepreneurship perspective and he has published research papers and books related to entrepreneurshipdevelopment and obtained training in the same discipline. He got a Commonwealth Secretariat (UK) scholarship to follow the course in Faculty Development Program in Management conducted by the Indian Institute of Management,Ahmedabadh in India in 2003. He has completed the PhD Degree with the Scholarship of the World Bank with collaboration of Ministry of Higher Education of Sri Lanka offered a scholarship to pursue PhD programme in Entrepreneurship at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia (2007-2009). He received the Top up scholarship (2010) for conducting PhD studies-Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He has actively been participating in the faculty development programmes in the Universityof Kelaniya. He was the coordinator for International conference on Business &Information (ICBI) 2011 faculty of commerce & Management studies University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. In addition to this he was the Co-editor for the Kelaniya Journal of Management, Faculty of Commerce & Management Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. And he is the coordinator for the diploma courses conducting in the University.
Specifically he was the teacher for most of our staff for their Masters Degree programme who are working in the Faculty of Management Studies & Commerce. |
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Dr. M. Selvaratnam Consultant psychiatrist MBBS (Peradeniya), MSc (London) |
He has over 20 years experience of running a small company specializing in personal financial advice. He has acquired experience in running voluntary sector organizations. Networking is a key driver in unlocking the potential in people of developing and developed countries. Voluntary efforts and social enterprise initiatives are important contributors to the socio-economic growth of the country. He is supporting the growth of social enterprises by organizing the flow of human and financial capital into Sri Lanka. Moreover he is working on starting new social enterprise ventures. His teaching interests are social entrepreneurship, SMEs, sales and marketing, Finance and foundations of E business. His teaching methods facilitates the students for the brainstorming, participating workshops, videos, case studies, and self directed learning. He has served as the Director of Finance Ltd. (financial advisory service company, UK) and provided personal financial advice to the clients from 1980 to 2002. First, he was a Trainee Psychiatrist and worked as a consultant psychiatrist in NHS England from 1978 – 2011. He was the Finance Director for Alcohol East Ltd (East London Alcohol Advisory service) in 1993/1995 and was a founder, Treasurer and Secretary of Medical Institute of Tamils, UK in 1986- 1991. |
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| Track D: Education | |
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Prof. S. Mohan Director, Centre for Research in Education, B.Sc, B.Ed, M.Ed, P.G.Diploma in Statistics, Ph.D in Education |
Is an eminent Professor and distinguished researcher in the field of Education for more than four decades. Having started his career as a Science Graduate with Maths, Physics and Chemistry subsequently, he chose to specialized in the field of Education and has excelled as an educationist of international repute. He received his Ph.D Degree in Education in 1981 and since then, he has been actively involved in various academic and administrative endeavours of various Universities in the Field of Education in and out of India. He served as a Professor and Head of the Department of Education, at the Alagappa University, Karaikudi, India as from 1992 to 2006. He also excelled his services as the Dean, College Development Council and as the Director of Collaborative Programmes and Adult and Continuing Education at the Alagappa University, Karaikudi. At present he holds the distinguished post of Director at the Centre for Research in Education, Kundrakkudi. He was one of the expert members appointed by the Government of India for analyzing the quality of the Teacher Education at National level, monitoring and revising the national curriculum. He is also a member of the resource group Planning Commission for India XI plan. He was honored at National level with All Indian awards by Karnatak University, Periyar University, Teacher innovation NCERT and internationally by the American Biographical Institute award as the Man of the Year 1998. He was been appointed as a member in the Board of Research Advisers in the American Biographical Institute, USA. He has also served as an expert member in the University Grants Commission as well as a member of the syndicate and selection committees of various Universities of India. He has considerable collaborative experience in research with International Universities in Canada, Phillipines, USA, Japan, Hong Kong, Netherlands and Srilanka. |
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Track E: Health and Medical Sciences |
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Prof. (Dr.) Daya Somasundaram BA (USA), MBBS (India), MDpsych (Sri Lanka), FRCPsych (UK), FRANZCP (Australia) |
Was a Senior Professor of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna and Consultant Psychiatrist working in Northern Sri Lanka for over two decades. He has also worked in Cambodia for two years in a community mental health programme with the Transcultural Psychosocial Organization. Apart from teaching and training a variety of health staff and community level workers, his research and publications have mainly concentrated on the psychological effects and treatment of disasters, both manmade wars and natural tsunami. His book, Scarred Minds, described the psychological effects of war on individuals. He was co-author of Broken Palmyrah with three other academics from the University of Jaffna. He received the Commonwealth Scholarship in 1988 and fellowship of the Institute of International Education’s Scholars Rescue Fund, UN plaza, New York, USA in 2006-8. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. Currently on extended sabbatical in Australia, he has been working on a book, Scarred Communities as well as a consultant psychiatrist at Glenside Hospital, Supporting Survivors of Torture and Trauma (STTARS) and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide. His key-note address will be on “Rebuilding Community Resilience in a post-war context -in Northern Sri Lanka”. |
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| Track F: Humanities and Fine Arts | |
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Prof. V. Maheswaran |
Prof.V.Maheswaran finished his B.A (Hons.) in Tamil with a first class at University of Peradeniya, in the year of 1982. He then joined as an Asst. Lecturer at the Dept.of Tamil after he left from the Sri Lankan Broadcasting Cooperation, Ministry of Education. He had successfully completed his MPhil at University of Peradeniya (1998) and PhD at University of Tanjore, India (2005) in Tamil Epigraphy. At present he is functioning as the Head at the Department of Tamil. Apart from this, he is also serves as a Consultant, Resource person and Member of the Board of Studies for Dept. of Hindu cultural affairs (Ministry of Cultural Affairs), National Institute of Education (Ministry of Education) and Institute of NILET (Ministry of National Integration). University of Annamalai (India), University of Madras (India) and University of Tanjore (India), have appointed him as an External Examiner for higher degree dissertations. |
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Ms Dilini Walisundara Department of English |
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Ms Dilini Walisundara is currently the chair person of Sri Lanka English Language Teachers’ Association (SLELTA). She is keenly interested in enhancing English language proficiency level of the rural children. In order to achieve this task, she has been conducting many seminars and workshops with her team for the English teachers who serve in the rural schools. |
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Track G: Information Sciences and Technology |
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Dr. N. Asokan BTech (Hons.)(Kharagpur), MS (Syracuse), PhD (Waterloo) |
Is a Distinguished Researcher with the Radio Systems Laboratory at Nokia Research Center where he leads the Security and Networking Protocols research group. He also served as a part-time professor at the Helsinki University of Technology from March 2006 till December 2007. Asokan has been conducting research in building secure systems for over fifteen years, first at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory and then at Nokia Research Center. His primary
research interest has been in applying cryptographic techniques to
design secure protocols for distributed systems. Recently, he has also
been investigating the use of Trusted Computing technologies for
securing endnodes, and ways to make secure systems usable.Asokan serves on the steering committee of the ACM Wireless
Security conference and has served on the program committees of
several security research conferences. He also served on the
editorial boards of the IEEE Network magazine and the Elsevier
Computer Communications journal. |
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| Track H: Pure Sciences | |
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Dr. K. Muthumani |
Dr. Muthumani received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the School of Biological Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University, India in 1995. After completion of his postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, PA, USA, he became an Assistant Professor, at the Dept. of Pathology and Lab. Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA since 1998. Currently, his research is aimed at studying the molecular pathogenesis of HIV-1 infection, focusing on the role of HIV-1 accessory genes. Specifically, he is interested in investigating the modulatory role of the viral genes in host immune cell regulation during HIV infection and the function of T cell exhaustion markers and its regulation by the viral proteins. Additionally his research also aims to explore the mechanisms behind the pathogenesis of Chikungunya virus, a single stranded positive RNA virus, which is transmitted to humans through mosquitoes; He is specifically interested in the tropism of CHIKV and its replication characteristics; investigating the signals that alter host cell functions and identifying the molecular mechanisms that underlie host receptor modifications that facilitate viral entry. Furthermore, his research interest explores the field of vaccine development; particularly directed to development of a novel consensus-based approach, employing a DNA vaccine strategy that can induce higher cross-reactive immune response against different infectious diseases including HIV, Chikungunya virus, Dengue virus and Foot and Mouth Disease Virus (FMDV). His work has been culminated in authorships in about 50 publications in widely recognized peer-reviewed journals, including first-author publications in Nature Cell Biology, Blood, Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Public Library of Science. Also he has mentored several students in their research endeavors, including MD and PhD students. Based on his discoveries, his name is listed as a co-inventor on 10 filed patents that the University of Pennsylvania, USA holds title to, and these are all licensed. |
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Prof. Rajaratnam Shanthini BASc (Moratuwa), MSc (Alberta), PhD (Luleå) |
Is a professor in Chemical and Process engineering at University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. She has received her Bachelor’s degree from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, her M.Sc. from University of Alberta, Canada, and her PhD from Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. She has served three terms as the Head of the Department of Chemical and Process engineering at University of Peradeniya, and in fact she is the first woman lecturer, the first woman head of the department and the first woman professor in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya. Her formal research training abroad was in the field of computational fluid dynamics. After her return to Sri Lanka in 1991, she successfully established teaching and research programmes in the field of environmental pollution control engineering at her department. She has authored a text book on Thermodynamics and a popular book on Household Composting. She has also pioneered sustainable development related studies at her faculty. Her concerns for the well-being of the people and other living things have led her to carryout research on economical development with environmental protection and social well being, modelling of carbon dioxide emissions – economic development nexus, development of indices for emissions emancipated human development, and economic development related issues in Sri Lanka. Her multidisciplinary approach to education and research and her long-standing experience in curriculum development have led her develop a course in “Energy and Environment” for a Master of Development Practise programme at national level. At present, she has been involved in developing a course in “Energy, Green Economy and Governance” at regional level. Her other interests include photography, cinema, hiking, swimming, finding homes for homeless dogs and cats, and literary writing. For more information about her, visit www.rshanthini.com |
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| Track I: Social Sciences | |
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Dr. Visaka Nithiyanandam Retired Professor in Economics |
Dr. Nithiyanandam completed his secondary schooling at Hartley College, Point Pedro and entered the then University of Ceylon, Peradeniya in 1963. After reading for an Honours Degree in Economics, he joined the teaching staff of the same University in 1967. In 1968, he moved over to the Colombo Campus of the University of Ceylon (now, University of Colombo). He obtained his PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Reading, England in 1975 on a Colombo Plan Scholarship. He joined the University of Jaffna in 1980 as a Senior Lecturer in Economics, and has the distinction of serving the University as the founder Professor of Agricultural Economics and, then, as the Professor of Economics. In the interim, he had been a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand. Besides being a Visiting Scholar in several universities, including the University of Reading on a Commonwealth Fellowship and Cornell University, Ithaca, USA, he has published books and articles in both Tamil and English in the fields of Political Economy, Development Economics, and Economic History. |
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