Our People
ADVISORY BOARD
Jayati Ghosh
Professor Jayati Ghosh is a Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA. Prior to that, she was at the Centre of Economic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. In Jayati’s impressive portfolio as a global champion for socio-economic justice, she is also appointed by the United Nations to a high-level advisory board to provide recommendations for the UN Secretary-General on current and future socio-economic challenges.
Chandru Chandrasekhar
Heidi Chow
Heidi Chow is the Executive Director of Debt Justice. It is a UK based campaigning organisation which works to end poverty, inequality and exploitation caused by an unjust global debt. Debt Justice-UK works in solidarity with affected communities in the global south and across the UK. Heidi has a track record of winning public campaigns on economic justice issues for almost two decades and was formerly a senior campaigner and policy advisor at Global Justice Now.
Ishac Diwan
Dr Ishac Diwan is the director of research of the Finance for Development Lab. He currently teaches at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, and has held in recent years teaching positions at Columbia University, School for International Public Affairs, and at the Harvard Kennedy School. His recent (co-authored) books include A Political Economy of the Middle East (Westview Press 2015); and Crony Capitalism in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2019). He is also widely published on issues of global finance, macroeconomics and development strategies. He holds a PhD in Economics and Finance from the University of California at Berkeley.
Kanishka Goonewardena
Professor Kanishka Goonewardena is a co-founder of IPE. He is a Professor at the Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto, Canada. He studies relations between space and ideology, the politics of planning, and the triad of nationalism, imperialism and colonialism in relation to the contradictions of capitalism – and has published extensively in the field. He holds a PhD from Cornell University, where his thesis focused on planning theory, political thought and social theory.
Kiran Grewal
Professor Kiran Grewal is a member of the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London where she convenes the MA in Human Rights, Culture and Social Justice and co-directs the Unit for Global Justice. A qualified lawyer, Kiran has worked in a range of different countries as a scholar, practitioner and activist in the areas of refugee law, sexual and gender-based violence, torture prevention and transitional justice.
Over the past 12 years Kiran has been working with local community activists in Sri Lanka to develop critical democratic practice. She is the founder of the annual Sri Lankan Decolonial Summer School, which is held each year in August. For more information please see: https://decolonial.org/
Stephen Kidd
Dr Stephen Kidd is CEO of Development Pathways, a renowned global consultancy company focusing on social protection, a core public service that ensures minimum incomes for all members of society. He was previously Director of Policy at HelpAge International and led the DfID (Department for International Development) Social Protection Team. Prior to that, he was an academic based at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. He has supported UNICEF’s policy engagement in Sri Lanka, undertaking analysis of the potential of universal child benefits and emergency responses to COVID-19.
Howard Nicholas
Dr Howard Nicholas is an Associate Professor in Economics at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. He adopts an analytical lens shaped by both economics and social sciences more broadly. His areas of interest are non-neoclassical economics, capacity building for economics-related policy and business decision-making. Howard provides training for a practical approach to economic information with an explicit focus on implications for Sri Lankan businesses.
COORDINATING COLLECTIVE
Charith Gunawardena
Charith Gunawardena is a co-founder of IPE. His professional life extends from the corporate to the political world. He worked and retired as a Director of Buhler UK Ltd, which is a high-tech machinery manufacturer for the global food industry whilst also being an elected ex-local councillor in London, England. He is a frequent contributor to Sri Lanka’s media on the importance taking mitigating steps to protect itself from abuses of the unjust global economic order. He holds an MBA and M.Phil in Engineering. Tweets @ipe_sl
Kanchana N. Ruwanpura
Professor Kanchana N. Ruwanpura is a co-founder of IPE and volunteer. She is a Professor of Development Geography at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and Fellow at the Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Her research focuses on the intersection between labour, feminism, ethnicity and post-war development, with a regional focus on Sri Lanka and South Asia – and has published extensively on these topics. She holds a PhD from Newnham College, University of Cambridge.
Narayani Sritharan
Dr. Narayani Sritharan is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at AidData – a research lab at the Global Research Institute at William & Mary, and a Templeton Fellow in the Asia Program at Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). She is also a Steering Committee member and Co-Founder of Diversifying and Decolonising Economics (D-Econ). Her research focuses on the intersection between conflict reconciliation, environment, and economic development with a focus on non-traditional donor investments in the Global South (particularly South Asia). She holds a PhD in economics from University of Massachusetts – Amherst.
Amali Wedagedara
Dr Amali Wedagedara recently completed her PhD in Political Science at the University of Hawaii, where her dissertation work explored the dynamics of private debt on people’s political agency. Her research is based in Sri Lanka and she works closely with people from low-income households in order to understand how indebted people respond to their debt and how such responses shape people’s identity in return. She holds a masters in international politics from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.
RESEARCH COLLABORATORS
Mohideen Alikhan
Dr Mohideen Mohamed Alikhan is a senior lecturer at the Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. He has been a visiting lecturer at the Department of Geography, University of Colombo. He graduated from the University of Colombo and then he did his MPhil at the Department of Geography, at the University of Peradeniya. Alikhan has recently completed his PhD on ‘Conviviality, tension and everyday negotiations: subaltern cosmopolitanism and governance dynamics of low-income neighbourhoods in Colombo, Sri Lanka’ at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom. His research areas of interest include urban governance, housing, and migration with a special focus on displacement, relocations and labour.
Melani Gunathilaka
Melani Gunathilaka is a climate and a social activist from Sri Lanka. She is the co-founder of Climate Action Now Sri Lanka – #cansrilanka and is also a member of the Extinction Rebellion Sri Lanka and Debt For Climate global movement.
She has worked with local communities supporting sustainable consumption and production and mobilised campaigns against ecocide and plastic pollution. Her current projects focus on human rights and economic rights violations in Sri Lanka in addition to the work she does on climate justice and active citizenship.
Thiruni Kelegama
Dr Thiruni Kelegama is a Lecturer in Modern South Asian Studies at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, UK. Her research looks at political and infrastructural transformations triggered by development in Sri Lanka and the Global South. She holds a PhD in Political Geography from the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Githmi Rabel
Githmi Rabel is a recent graduate from NYU Abu Dhabi, double-majoring in Economics and Social Research & Public Policy. She was an Editor-in-Chief at The Gazelle, NYUAD’s independent student publication. She is interested in migration, development and labor in the Global South with a specific focus on migrant experiences between South Asia and the Gulf region, and will be returning to NYUAD as a Research Assistant in the Division of Social Sciences.
MeeNilankco Theiventhran
Dr Gz. MeeNilankco Theiventhran is a lecturer at the University of Oslo, where he leads a Master’s programme in International Development Studies. His research mainly concerns equity and justice aspects of energy transitions in the Global South and pays specific attention to geopolitical dynamics and policy challenges confronting developing countries in achieving clean energy transitions. He has an interdisciplinary background in political science, geography and engineering and twenty years of work experience in teaching, project management, public policy, and international development. He holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Oslo.
Dhanusha Gihan Pathirana
Dhanusha Gihan Pathirana is an economist. He is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Colombo.