Dr Bilesha Weeraratne

Bilesha Weeraratne is a Research Fellow and Head of Migration and Urbanisation Policy Research at the IPS. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University, New Jersey, USA. Prior to moving to the United States, she worked at the IPS and at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Her research interests include internal and international migration, climate mobility, urbanisation, the economics of education, labour economics, economic development, econometrics and economic modeling. She has collaborated and served as a consultant to prominent international organisations such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

She serves on several international research and policy platforms, including the Feminist and Political Economy Technical Working Group (FPETWG) under STREAM and FAIRWAY II, the UNODC Steering Committee on the Transnational Organized Crime Strategy, and IOM’s Gender and Migration Research Policy Action Lab (GenMig). Bilesha also reviews for leading international journals and contributes as a PhD examiner at Sri Lankan universities.

Bilesha holds a BA in Economics from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, an MA in Economics from Rutgers University, USA and an MPhil and PhD in Economics from the City University of New York, USA.