Sunday Times 2
Lankan names on Queen’s 2021 honours list
View(s):Several British-Sri Lankans are on the Queen’s 2021 New Year honours list which recognises the outstanding achievements of people across the United Kingdom.
The awards are as follows:
Commander of the Order of the
British Empire (CBE)
Professor Ravi Silva, Director, Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey receives a CBE for his outstanding services to Science, Education and Research over the last three decades, with contributions that extend around the world. Prof. Silva has conducted major research activities in China, India, Sri Lanka and the UK. They have helped to elevate research and the translation of research into useful national products.
Prof. Silva also helped set up one of the largest carbon nanotechnology laboratories at Surrey, and his research into energy materials will play a key role in next generation solar cells and energy storage, the University of Surrey website states.
Prof. Silva has won numerous international awards including the Albert Einstein Silver Medal and Javed Husain Prize by UNESCO (2003), and the Institute of Physics James Joule Medal and Prize (2018) for contributions to sustainable energy research. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences Sri Lanka.
Officers of the Order of the
British Empire (OBE)
Prof. Mohan Edirisinghe who has been conferred the OBE holds the Bonfield Chair of Biomaterials in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London (UCL). Prof. Edirisinghe has been in the forefront of developing new methods to manufacture advanced materials particularly in healthcare.
His patented technology for producing micro-bubbles and nanoparticles has enabled the manufacture of whole new drug delivery systems, the UCL website states.
He has won many awards including the Royal Society Brian Mercer (Innovation) Feasibility Award a record three times, the Royal Academy of Engineering Armourers & Brasiers prize for excellence in Materials Engineering in 2017 and the Premier IOM3 Chapman Medal for his distinguished research in the field of biomedical materials.
He was elected as a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK and in 2020, as a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences.
Professor Ramani Moonesinghe is Professor of Perioperative Medicine and Consultant Anaesthetist, University College London. She receives the OBE for services to Anaesthesia, Perioperative and Critical Care.
In her NHS England role, Prof. Moonesinghe was the clinical lead for the national critical care response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She is Head of the Centre for Perioperative Medicine and Head of the Department of Targeted Intervention, both at UCL. She is also the NHS England/NHS Improvement’s National Clinical Director for Critical Care and an honorary Consultant Anaesthetist at University College London Hospitals NHS Trust, the UCL website states.
Gajan Wallooppillai, former Conservative councillor in Richmond receives the OBE for services to Equality and Community Cohesion. A former local councillor in the Royal Borough of Kingston-Upon-Thames, he is currently a Special Advisor to the Conservative Party Chairman and the party’s International Secretary.
Dr Shikandhini Kanagasundrem, Director, Infection Prevention and Control and Consultant Microbiologist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, receives the OBE for services to microbiology, infection prevention and control, particularly during the COVID-19 response.
Mohamed Hazrath Haleem Ossman receives the OBE for services to the Sri Lankan community in the UK (London, Greater London). An old boy of S. Thomas College, he is an accountant by profession with businesses in the UK and Sri Lanka and an active member of the Sri Lanka Islamic (UK) Association.