Dr Nisha Arunatilake

Nisha Arunatilake has been a Research Fellow at IPS since 2000 and was appointed as the Director of Research in January 2018. She has extensive post-doctoral experience in conducting policy-related economic research in labour market analysis, education, public finance and health. She heads the Labour, Employment, and Human Resource Development unit at the IPS. Her work is published in both local and international journals, book chapters, and reports.

She has collaborated with, and has been a consultant to different organisations, including the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), and International Labour Organization (ILO) in numerous research studies. She was the lead author of the second National Human Development Report (2012) for Sri Lanka.

She is a Research Associate of the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Institute of Tulane University of New Orleans, USA. Dr Arunatilake is also a Research Fellow and serves on the Gender Committee of the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP). Similarly, she is an Associate of KIVU International, Oxford.

She has served in national-level committees on education, health sector reform, labour, employment, human resource development, migration, and tobacco and alcohol policy formulation.

She holds a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics with summa cum laude from the University of the South, USA and an MA and PhD in Economics from Duke University, USA. All three of her degrees were fully funded by university grants.