2024
Gunindu Abeysekera (Dance, UCLA), Kuveni’s Revenge: Sri Lankan Dance, Gender, and Nation Formation through the Chitrasena Dance Company.
Claire Elliot (Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania), Theravada Dreamscapes: Dreams of Ghosts, Karma and the Future.
Rin Krichilsky (Entomology, American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University), Re-discovery of Krombeinictus: The Rare Pollen Eating Wasp Endemic to Sri Lanka.
Ifadha Sifar (History, Columbia University), A Gulf Between: Labor Migration, Identity Formation, and Claims to Belonging in Manaar, 1904-1961.
2023
Priyanka Jayakody (Anthropology, Michigan State University), When Uncertainties Become Certain: Water Insecurity in the Context of Chronic Kidney Disease of Uncertain Etiology (CKDu) in Sri Lanka.
2022
Clare Bradford Anderson (History, Harvard University), Roots of the Tropics: Cultivating Plants, People and Place in Britain’s Indian Ocean Crown Colonies.
Raymond M. Hyser III (History, University of Texas–Austin), Caribbean Ceylon: Nature, Science and the Spread of Plantation Coffee in the Global Tropics.
Yajna Sanguhan (Political Science, University of Pennsylvania), Life after the War: Development and Governance in Northern Sri Lanka.
Shibanee Sivanayagam (Anthropology, CUNY Graduate School), Capital, Sustainability and Tamil Political Consciousness.
2021
Crystal Baines (English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst), In Search of Middle Paths: Literary Secularizations in Twentieth-Century Sri Lanka.
Du Fei (History, Cornell University), The Home and the World: Economic Life, Matrilineal Law, and Islam in South India and Ceylon, c. 1450-1900.
Kristen Thomas-McGill (History, University of California, Santa Barbara), Scotland, Ceylon, Space and Sex: Rethinking the Case of Hector MacDonald.
2020
Alexis Bader Brown (Buddhist Studies, Harvard University), Narrative, Ethics, and Transformative Aesthetics in the Rasavāhinī.
Deborah Philip (Anthropology, Graduate Center CUNY), The Burgher Gaze: Belonging, Temporality and Political Imaginaries in Colonial and Post-Colonial Sri Lanka.
2019
Kaitlin Emmanuel (Art History, Cornell University), Imagining the Nation: Socio-Political Legacies of Art Making in Modern Sri Lanka.
2018
Krishantha Fedricks (Anthropology, University of Texas-Austin), Mass-Mediated Religiosity: Buddhist Televangelism in Post-War Sri Lanka.
Tyler Lehrer (History, University of Wisconsin-Madison), Tracing the Usable Histories of Eighteenth Century Lankan Buddhist Networks.
Amali Wedagedara (Political Science, University of Hawai’i at Manoa), Indebtedness and Political Subjectivity: A Study on the Microfinance Programmes in Sri Lanka.
2017
Crystal Whetstone (Political Science, University of Cincinnati), Advancing Women’s Political Participation in Wartime Environments through Political Motherhood.
2016
Nadia Augustyniak (Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York), Exploring Socio-cultural Dimensions of Counselling and Psychosocial Care in Sri Lanka.
2015
Elizabeth Bittel (Sociology, University of Colorado at Boulder), Disaster Recovery Paradigms and the Sri Lankan Context: A Comparative Study of Two Communities in Batticaloa.
Emily Burchfield (Environmental Studies, Vanderbilt University), Adaptive Water Management in the Sri Lankan Dry Zone.
Lakshika Senarath Gamage (Art History, UCLA), Embekke Devale: A Synthesis of Gampola and Kandy Period Art and Architecture.
Divya Kumar-Dumas (South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania), Periodizing a Landscape Plan for Sigiriya: The Visited Place, 7th–13th centuries CE.
Narmadha Senanayake (Geography, Pennsylvania State University), Unraveling the Human-Environment-Health Nexus: Mystery Kidney Disease and Agrarian Transformation in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone.
2014
Kalyani Ramnath (History, Princeton University), “Mrs. Senewiratne’s Suicide: Lawyers, Jurors and Medical Experts in the British Empire.”
2013
Philip Friedrich (Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania), “Regional Circulations and the Remaking of the Buddhasasana in Late-Medieval Sri Lanka.”
Devaka Gunawardena (Anthropology, UCLA), “Non-Governmental Organizations and State Reform in Post-War Sri Lanka.”
Hans Harmsen (Anthropology, University of Buffalo), ”Coastal hazards, resiliency and the co-evolution of human-natural systems along the southeast coast of Sri Lanka during the middle to late Holocene (ca 5000—1000 BC).”
Dian A.H. Shah (Law, Duke University), “Comparative Constitutional Law and Religion: South and Southeast Asia Arrangements.”
2012
Aimée Douglas (Anthropology, Cornell University), “Artisanal Nation: The Social Dynamics of Heritage Production in Sri Lanka.”
Justin Henry (Religious Studies, University of Chicago), “The Influence of Sanskrit Kavya on Medieval Sinhala Buddhist Literature.”
Melissa Langworthy (Development Studies, Tulane University), “Strategies of Capital Use and Asset Formation among Poor Women in Kandy Municipality.”
2011
Cenan Pirani, (History, University of California–Los Angeles), “Beginning Research on Portuguese Ceylon.”
2010
Bernardo Brown (Anthropology, Cornell University), “Unlikely Cosmopolitans: The Vernacular Modernity of Sri Lankan Return Migrants.”
Victor Nemchenok (History, University of Virginia), “Contesting World Order: International Development and the Search for Justice.”
2009
Kanchuka Dharmasiri (Comparative Literature, U. of Massachusetts–Amherst), “Transgressing Space and Subverting Hierarchies: A Comparative Analysis of Street Theater Groups in Sri Lanka, India, and the United States”.
Natalie E.F. Quli (Buddhist Studies, Graduate Theological Union), “Sri Lankan Buddhist Temple Organizations in Diaspora”.
Cala Zubair (Linguistics, Georgetown University), “Youth Multiculturalism in Sri Lanka: An Ethnographic and Linguistic Study”.
2008
Annelies M. Goger (Geography, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill), “Managing Global Guilt on the Shop Floor: Ethical Apparel Initiatives in Mexico and Sri Lanka”.
Kaori Hatsumi (Anthropology, Columbia University), “The City of Joseph Vaz”.
Romesh Silva (Demography, University of California–Berkeley), “Demographic Estimation Techniques and Conflict-Related Mortality in Sri Lanka”.
