D.n.b. Gunewardena

Biography

Dileni Gunewardena holds a doctorate in Economics from American University, Washington, D.C and a B.A. (Honours) in Economics from the University of Peradeniya, where she is Professor of Economics (Chair). Her research is mainly in Development Microeconomics and includes empirical analyses relating to poverty measurement, child nutrition, gender wage inequality and ethnic inequality. She has contributed to several World Bank poverty profiles on Sri Lanka as well as to the first National Human Development Report on Sri Lanka and reports on progress toward the Millennium Development Goals in Sri Lanka. She has consulted for the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank. She has taught short courses for the World Bank Institute’s South Asia Region Workshops. She has twice received awards for her research at the Global Development Network (GDN) Annual Conferences. She is the author of a book on Poverty Measurement,_ _several chapters in books, and numerous journal articles. She has been a Fulbright Research Scholar to the University of California-Riverside and a visiting scholar at the University of Warwick. She played a leading role in obtaining a MacArthur Foundation grant for the Dept. of Economics to launch a globally affiliated Master of Development Practice Degree, which she now coordinates.

Research Interest

Development Microeconomics, Poverty & Inequality, Gender Economics, Labour Economics.