Prof. Priyanganie Senanayake is a distinguished academic with over 30 years of experience in
university education, administration, and research. She holds a BSc (Special) Degree in Botany
from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and obtained her postgraduate qualifications from
the University of Reading, United Kingdom.

Currently serving as a Professor in the Department of Plant and Molecular Biology at the
University of Kelaniya, she has held numerous academic and administrative positions
throughout her career. These include serving as the Academic Advisor to the Department and
the BSc Biological Sciences programme, a member of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell of the
Faculty of Science, and the Director of the Centre for Quality Assurance of the University. She
also served as the Director of the Floriculture Research Centre at the University of Kelaniya.

Prof. Senanayake represents the University of Kelaniya as the Ambassador for the Asia-Pacific
Region of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), contributing to regional and
international academic collaboration.

Her research interests span multiple disciplines within plant systematics, phytochemistry,
floristic studies and crop improvement, and she has successfully secured several competitive
research grants from funding sources, including the National Research Council (NRC) of Sri
Lanka, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Agricultural Research Policy, and the

World Bank-funded Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development (AHEAD)
project.

She has established collaborative research partnerships with institutions such as the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK), the Industrial Technology Institute (Sri Lanka), Institute of
Indigenous Medicine, (Sri Lanka) and the Ayurveda Research Institute, Nawinna (Sri Lanka). Her
research output includes numerous publications in peer-reviewed indexed journals, which have
been recognized through several awards, including Presidential Awards, Vice Chancellor’s
Awards, and Senate Awards for Scientific Publications.

In addition to her research accomplishments, Prof. Senanayake has mentored numerous
postgraduate students at MSc, MPhil, and PhD levels, along with supervising many
undergraduate research projects.