Carlo Fonseka Orator

Professor Janaka de Silva is Senior Professor and Chair of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, and Consultant Physician, Colombo North Teaching Hospital. He was formerly Dean of Medicine, University of Kelaniya – succeeding the Founder Dean Professor Carlo Fonseka in 1997, Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Chairman National Research Council, and Member of the University Grants Commission and Sri Lanka Medical Council.

Professor de Silva was Educated at Royal College, Colombo, and holds degrees from the Universities of Colombo – at a time where his mentor Professor Carlo Fonseka was teaching Physiology, and Oxford. He is Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians London, Ceylon College of Physicians, and National Academy of Sciences Sri Lanka, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Royal College of Physicians Thailand and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Glasgow. He was President of the Ceylon College of Physicians in 2004.

Professor de Silva has wide research interests, and has co-authored over 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals with a Google h-index of 55. He is recipient of national and international research awards, including the inaugural Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Directors Lifetime Excellence Award for the Most Outstanding Researcher in Medical and Allied Sciences and several Presidential Research Awards. Recently, he was included in the world’s top 2% of scientists career-wide database 1996-2019 compiled by Stanford University, USA. He is Editor Emeritus of the Ceylon Medical Journal, former Editor of the Online Appendix of Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine, and has held editorial positions in leading medical journals. He serves on committees in health and research organizations including the WHO, Wellcome Trust and the National Institute of Health Research, UK. In 2005, he was awarded the titular honour ‘Vidyajyothi’, the nation’s highest award for Science.