First woman head of UGC takes over
February 1, 2013, 9:25 pm , the islandby Dasun Edirisinghe
The country’s first woman to be appointed head of the University Grants Commission, Prof. Kshanika Hirimburegama assumed duties yesterday morning.
Prof. Ms. Hirimburegama succeeded Prof. Gamini Samaranayake, who would return to the Political Science Department of the Peradeniya University.
Prof. Hirimburegama joined the Botany Department of the Colombo University as a lecturer in 1990. She received a double promotion, as the Assistant Professor, at the age of 38 years. She promoted as a professor when she was 41 and Senior Professor at 49.
She served as a member of the UGC and was the founder of the Magampura Agrarian Technology and Social Science Institute in Hambantota. Prof. Hirimburegama played a major role in launching degree and postgraduate programmes in tissue culture and is the author of five books and 35 research papers.
Prof. Hirimburegama served as the General Secretary of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006 and 2007, President of the Institute of Biology and Secretary of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science.
During her tenure as the Vice Chancellor of the University, from 2008, the Colombo University was ranked as 2,000 in the first 7,000 universities in World.
An old girl of the Visakha Vidyalaya Colombo 04, Prof. Hirimburegama is the daughter of Dr. Punchi Bandara Sannasgala, an academic researcher on Sinhala language, Sinhala literature, Pali and Sanskrit.
