Prof. S.H.P. Parakrama Karunaratne is a Senior Professor and the Chair of the Department of Zoology at the University of Peradeniya. He obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University of Peradeniya and his Ph.D. from the University of London. He served as Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya from 2018 to 2021 and previously as Dean of the Faculty of Science from 2007 to 2013. He has also held visiting research positions at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK (2001–2010) and the University of Wales Cardiff in the UK (1994–2000). He has won several national and international prestigious awards for Excellence in Research, including the SLAAS General Research Committee Award (2018), CVCD Excellence Award (2016), and Indian Medical Council Vestergaard Frandsen Award (2011). Additionally, he is an Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences Sri Lanka (since 2006) and the Royal Entomological Society, London, UK (since 1997). Furthermore, he has served as a member of the DDT expert group for the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland from 2015 to 2023. His research interests include mosquito control, insecticide resistance in insects, molecular mechanisms of insecticide resistance, control of insect pests in agriculture, control of insect vectors of human and livestock diseases, DNA barcoding and phylogeny of insects, antibiotic-resistant genes, and microbial water pollution.
