Nihal W. Goonewardene appointed to The Fletcher School's Board of Overseers

Nihal W. Goonewardene has been appointed to the Board of Overseers of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Mr. Goonewardene is the first Sri Lankan to attend The Fletcher School, and received two graduate degrees in 1973 and 1975. He received a BA in Political Science in 1972 from Oakland University in Michigan. He is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of International Science and Technology Institute, Inc. (ISTI) in Arlington, Virginia.

An old boy of St. Joseph's College, Colombo and a National Judo Champion of Sri Lanka from 1964 to 1968, Mr. Goonewardene served as President of Old Joes of America Foundation, 1995-2006, and President of both the Sri Lanka Association of Washington, DC and the tax-exempt charity Sri Lanka Association of Greater Washington, Inc. from 2002-2006.

In this last capacity, he was instrumental in delivering more than US$1.4 million in tsunami reconstruction aid to affected communities in the North, South and East coasts of Sri Lanka while completing 35 discrete assistance projects, and established the Prof. Cyril Ponnamperuma Endowment for 10 or more university-level science and math scholarships annually through the Fr. Peter Pillai Memorial Scholarship Fund.

He also led the Association's partnership with The Marshall Legacy Institute to provide 12 mine detection dogs to the Sri Lanka Army's humanitarian land mine clearing operations in the North and East, a programme supported by the US Department of State.