I am a doctoral candidate in Economic Geography at the Turku School of Economics, University of Turku. Under my research, I am exploring regional knowledge ecosystems, the emergence of micro-ecosystems in university contexts and organisational change in a university environment. I was a visiting researcher at the Turku School of Economics from December 2015 to November  2017 under an Erasmus Mundus grant. 

I have diverse work experiences in both academia and industry, in the fields of teaching and training, university third mission activities, cluster policy, development for SMEs and management of regional development projects. I have worked with different international organizations when I was in Sri Lanka. From 2009-2011, I was a project grant writer and project focal point for different agro and food industry projects implemented by leading industry intermediaries in Sri Lanka with the financial support of international donors including WTO and UNIDO. 

I was the coordinator of the student startup program implemented by the Institute for Agro-technology of the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka with the technical collaboration of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in 2012. I have also served in project formulation teams and project implementation committees for several academic projects implemented under the funds of the World Bank and Asian Development Bank in 2011-2013.