Professor Janaka de Silva (2013-2019)
Vidyajyothi / vidyachakravarthy Professor Janaka de Silva is Senior Professor and Chair of Medicine, University of Kelaniya and Consultant Physician, Colombo North Teaching Hospital. He is also the Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo.
Prof. de Silva was educated at Royal College, Colombo, and the Universities of Colombo and Oxford. He was a member of the National Research Council since its inception in 1999, and was appointed as Chairman on 9th September 2013. He was reappointed as Chairman on 31st of August 2016 after the National Research Council was established as a statutory body by an act of parliament.
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Prof. Eric H. Karunanayake (2005-2013)
Vidyajyothi Professor Eric H. Karunanayake
Chairman / NRC
B. SC (Cey), M. Sc ( Lond), DIC.,
PhD (Lond) F. I Chem. C. Chem.
Professor Karunanyake , is Senior Professor of Biochemistry, University of Colombo. He is the Founder Director of the Institute of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Colombo. He is a fellow of the Third World Academy of Science, Fellow of the national Academy of Science, Sri Lanka. For more than two decades he has actively involved in research and capacity building in molecular life sciences in Sri Lanka.
Prof. Aries Kovoor (1999-2005)
Professor Aries Kovoor, a distinguished plant physiologist, graduated from the University of Madras in 1945 and began working at the university’s Botanical Research Laboratories. In 1952, he was appointed Assistant Professor at the Sorbonne Laboratory, and in 1969, he became a Professor of Plant Physiology and Director of the Laboratory “Physiologie de la Differenciation Cellulaire" at Faculty VII in Paris, where he held professorial rank until his retirement in 1992. Throughout his career, Kovoor held several positions of high standing, including Science Advisor to the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, and he made significant contributions to tissue culture research in tropical plants, particularly in coconut. His efforts to improve scientific research in Sri Lanka included the establishment of the National Research Council, which provided grants to support original and basic research proposals with minimal interference.
