Ravindra Fernando

Ravindra is a Sri Lankan forensic pathologist, toxicologist, physician, author and academic.

He is the current chairman of the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board of Sri Lanka.

Ravindra was educated at Ananda College Colombo and the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo.

He joined the Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, as a lecturer soon after his internship and subsequently trained in the Department of Forensic Medicine, Guy’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, on a Commonwealth Scholarship.

Ravindra was trained in the Department of Neurology in the same hospital and in the Department of Pathology, King Edward VII Hospital, Windsor.

He not only qualified as a pathologist by becoming a member of the Royal College of Pathologists but also qualified as a physician acquiring postgraduate qualifications in clinical medicine by membership of the Royal College of Physicians.

Ravindra has worked as a consultant forensic pathologist, senior lecturer in the University of London and Glasgow and was a Home Office pathologist for England and Wales and a Crown Office pathologist for Scotland working in London Glasgow and Sheffield.

He has been a member of United Nations and British forensic pathology teams (investigating the Thai Airways crash in Nepal and war graves in Bosnia)

Ravindra was appointed professor of forensic medicine and toxicology in Colombo in 1996.

He was instrumental in setting up the National Poisons Information Centre in the National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo, in 1988 (the first in South East Asia) and was its head from its inception for 20 years.

Ravindra has held positions nationally and internationally, including with the WHO, related to toxicology, pathology, child abuse, vector control and human rights.

He is multiply published in his own field and is also the author of 12 books on subjects varying from pesticide poisoning to international relations.

Ravindra has been multiply awarded for his work both nationally and internationally.

He was the President of The Ceylon College of Physicians in 1997 and President of The Sri Lanka Medical Association in 2004.

It is a very great honour to have Ravindra as the Toxicology co-chair at DevelopingEM 2016.