Improving COVID-19 and pandemic preparedness and response through the downstream of multi-hazard early warning systems

Dr. Chandana Siriwardana is a senior lecturer attached to Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. He obtained his Bachelors’ Degree in Civil Engineering from University of Moratuwa, followed by his Master's degree in Coastal Engineering from University of Tokyo, Japan with Monbukagakusho Scholarship. He obtained his PhD in Civil Engineering, with Project Management Specialization from University of Calgary, Canada.

After returning back to Sri Lanka, Dr. Siriwardana collaborated with Late Professor Sam Hettiarachchi, at University of Moratuwa, for EU ERASMUS+ co-funded collaborative research projects namely ASCENT (2016 – 2019) and CABARET (2017 – 2020) lead by University of Huddersfield, UK together with other partner universities from Europe and Asia. Dr. Siriwardana was the co-chair of the ‘ASCENT festival’, a five-day event held in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2019, comprised of training programs, panel discussions, field visits with an international conference on ‘Capacity Building for Research and Innovation in Disaster Resilience’. Dr. Siriwardana was the Principal Investigator, representing Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa for the MOBILISE project (2017 – 2019), co-funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) UK. And also the Principal Investigator of the recently launched BRITAE project (Building Resilience in Tropical Agroecosystems) which is co-funded by an EU Erasmus+ programme grant. 

In addition, Dr. Siriwardana has been working with the Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka, on adapting WHO ‘Safe Hospitals’ guidelines to the Sri Lankan context.  HEARTS-SL is an extension to this initiative, which aimed to develop an evidence-based vulnerability assessment for hospitals in Sri Lanka to tsunami and storm surge.  HEARTS-SL is a collaboration with University College of London (UCL), UK funded by GCRF, UK. Dr. Siriwardana collaboratively works with Dialog Axiata, PLC, Sri Lanka, and Huddersfield University, UK to investigate the current state of Multi Hazard Early Warning in Sri Lanka with a special focus on the mobile application DEWN. Furthermore, he collaborated with Department of Civil Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka on investigating the effectiveness and efficiency of the MHEW mechanisms in the coastal regions. Dr. Siriwardana is the focal point, representing University of Moratuwa for the Implementation of Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR 2015 – 2030) and was an evaluator of the National Tsunami Simulation Exercise in 2017. Recently he was appointed as the Secretary of the Association of Disaster Risk Management Professionals (ADRiMP) in Sri Lanka. Further, he holds the responsibilities as the course coordinator of Masters' degree of Construction Project Management offered by Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, the senior treasurer of the World University Service (WUS) and the staff adviser to the Nature Team of University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.