Dr. Perera and Prof. Colombage join Advocata Institute as Senior Visiting Fellows

Dr. Roshan Perera

Prof. Sirimevan Colombage

Advocata Institute has announced that Dr. Roshan Perera and Emeritus Prof. Sirimevan Colombage have taken up roles as Senior Visiting Fellows at the Advocata Institute.  

In their new roles at the Colombo-based independent public policy think tank, they will be playing a leading role in providing insight, analysis and guidance on key economic issues that affect Sri Lanka.  

Dr. Perera is an eminent public policy specialist with 20+ years of experience in formulating and implementing monetary and fiscal policy. She also has expertise in regulating and supervising financial institutions and in helping strengthen approaches to managing risks. She was a Director at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and presently works as an independent consultant to multilateral agencies, both in Sri Lanka and abroad. She has also served on many boards, including the Institute of Policy Studies and the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors. Presently, she also sits on the board of Senkadagala Finance. 

She joins the Advocata Institute with her world-class academic credentials, with a recently completed Masters in Public Administration as an Edward S. Mason Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University – USA.  She also has a PhD in Economics from the University of Melbourne – Australia, a Master in Environmental Geography from the University of Illinois in Chicago – IL, USA and a Master in Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Colombo. Prof. Colombage, an eminent economist, served on the academic staff of the Department of Economics, University of Ceylon – Peradeniya, before joining the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. He had a career of 30 years in Economic Research and Statistics Departments of the Central Bank in different capacities. He was the Director of Statistics of the Central Bank when he opted to return to academia as the first Chair and Senior Professor of Social Studies at the Open University of Sri Lanka. He has a B.A. First Class Hons. (Economics) from the University of Ceylon – Peradeniya, and a M.A. (Economics) and Ph.D. (Economics) from the University of Manchester – UK. 

Prof. Colombage has wide expertise in central banking and monetary policy, fiscal operations, international trade and finance, econometric modelling and macroeconomic frameworks. His research includes collaborative studies with the University of California, University of Manchester, University of Lund, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the Asian Pacific Development Centre, the Asian Productivity Organisation and South Asian Network of Economic Research Institutes. He is currently a member of the Working Committee on Social Sciences, National Science Foundation and a Co-Editor of the Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences. He is also a member of the Board of Management of the Social Policy Analysis and Research Centre – University of Colombo. He is an external reviewer of the Central Bank Staff Studies Journal. Prof. Colombage has published widely in refereed journals and authored several books and monographs.

Prof. Colombage made the following comments about joining the Advocata Institute.

“I consider it a great honour and privilege to join the team of the esteemed Advocata Institute. I hope that we can work together to explore and address the critical socio-economic issues for the betterment of the people in Sri Lanka as the world at large.”

Dr. Perera made the following comments.

“I have been very impressed by the cutting-edge policy analysis coming out from the Advocata Institute.  I consider it a privilege to be invited to join this team and to contribute to the public policy debate in Sri Lanka.”

Advocata Institute Chief Operating Officer Dhananath Fernando said: “We are honoured to have distinguished academics and economists along with the likes of Dr. Roshan Perera and Prof. Sirimevan Colombage as Senior Visiting Fellows at the Advocata Institute.  I look forward to working closely with them to improve and scale-up Advocata’s research products and outputs and become the leading voice in Sri Lanka’s public policy discourse”.