Chaya Dissanayake is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka. She holds a B.Sc. (Hons) in Agriculture specialised in Agricultural Economics from the University of Jaffna and is currently reading for an MSc in Integrated Water Resource Management at the Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture, Peradeniya. Her research interests include agricultural policies and institutions; disaster risk management; poverty and inequality; SMEs; vulnerability; women and workforce. She was awarded the IDRC-SAWA research fellowship in 2019 and represented Sri Lanka in the South Asian Water Leadership programme organised by South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resource Studies. Chaya is a former Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Agriculture Economics, Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Jaffna.
