Gamini Seneviratne

Professor Gamini Seneviratne currently works as a Senior Research Professor at NIFS. He obtained his B.Sc from the  University of Peradeniya, Faculty of Science in 1984 and his PhD in Botany in 1993 from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Prof Seneviratne's PhD thesis was titled "Optimization of the productivity of sustainable traditional rice farming in the dry zone of Sri Lanka". He received Presidential Research Awards in 1999, 2000 and 2001 and was first in the country in this award scheme in 2000. Prof Seneviratne was listed as a top researcher in Sri Lanka by the University Grant Commission (UGC). According to a report of the National Research Council (NRC), Sri Lanka, Professor Seneviratne was the second most productive scientist in the country in 2002 and 2003 and fifth most productive scientist out of about 1,800 scientists for the period 1991-2006. Prof Seneviratne was listed as one of the most productive scientists in Sri Lanka in the Third World Academy of Sciences, Italy. Prof Seneviratne was offered a short-term Visiting Collaborative Research Fellow at University of Sydney, Australia (April-June 2007) and was the only successful applicant from the Asian region to obtain this Fellowship in that year. He was a Visiting Professor of the University of Sydney, Australia from January-May 2009, funded by AusAID, Canberra.

Professor Seneviratne's current research interests include soil carbon sequestration in tropical ecosystems, development of biofilms for plant growth improvement and medical and environmental applications. He has supervised undergraduate and postgraduate students working in research projects on biological nitrogen fixation, biofilm biotechnology and soil carbon sequestration in ecosystems.