Gihan Nilendra Wikramanayake,

FBCS Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in infor ...

, CITP (17 January 1960 – 5 January 2018) was a Sri Lankan

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

. He was a Senior Professor in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

and attached to the Department of Information Systems Engineering. He was the Director of the

University of Colombo School of Computing The University of Colombo currently has seven faculties with 41 academic departments and two interdependent schools with five academic departments. All faculties and schools carries out courses of study and research in both graduate and undergradu ...

(UCSC) from 24 May 2010 to 31 May 2016. He was the Head of the Department of Information Systems Engineering from September 2002 to September 2005. He also served as the deputy director of the UCSC from 2003 to 2006.

Education

Educated at St. Aloysius' College (Galle) and

Royal College Colombo Royal College, Colombo is a selective entry boys' school located in Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Started as a private school by Rev Joseph Marsh in 1835, it was established as the Colombo Academy by Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton in Janu ...

, he graduated from the

University of Colombo (Buddhih Sarvatra Bhrajate) , mottoeng = ''Wisdom Enlightens'' , established = , endowment = LKR 1.461 billion

with a

BSc A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

in Statistics & Mathematics with First Class Honours in 1984 and went on to gain a MSc and PhD in Computer Science from the University of Wales, College of Cardiff in 1989 and 1996.

Academic career

In 1984 he joined the Computer Centre of the University of Colombo as a trainee programmer, he moved to the Department of Statistics and Computer Science as a researcher before becoming an Assistant Lecturer. In 1990 he became a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in 1996. Moving to the new Department of Computer Science in 2000 he became its acting Head in 2002. In 2002 he became the Head, Department of Information Systems Engineering, UCSC and deputy director, UCSC in 2004. From 2007 to 2008 he was the acting Head, Department of Communication and Media Technologies. He was also a visiting scholar of

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

, Stockholm University and

Umeå University Umeå University ( sv, Umeå universitet; Ume Sami: ) is a public research university located in Umeå, in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within Sweden's present borders. As of 2 ...

. In 2010 he became the Director of the UCSC and a professor of Computer Science. He served two terms as director UCSC. A fellow of the British Computer Society he served as the Chairman of the BCS Sri Lanka Section for five years from 2007/08, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12 and 2014/15. He also served as the chairman of UCSC owned company called Theekshana from 2010 to 2016. He also served as a board member of LEARN from 2010 to 2016. He was a member of the Sri Lanka Informatics Olympiad since 1998 and was involved in organizing IOI training since 1998. He took part as the Deputy Team Leader in IOI 1999 in Turkey and in IOI in 2001–2007, 2009–2010, 2014 and 2016 as the team leader. He served as a Sri Lankan judge at APICTA from 2003 to 2007, 2009–2014, 2016 and was the chief judge in APICTA 2015.

Death

On 5 January 2018, Wikramanayake died at the age of 57 from

motor neurone disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most commo ...

References

External links

University of Colombo School of ComputingBCS Sri Lanka Section Committee
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wikramanayake, Gihan 1960 births 2018 deaths Sri Lankan academic administrators Sri Lankan computer scientists Information systems researchers Alumni of the University of Colombo Alumni of the University of Wales Alumni of Royal College, Colombo Fellows of the British Computer Society Alumni of St. Aloysius' College, Galle