Dr Nisha Arunatilake has been a Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) since 2000 and was appointed Director of Research in January 2018. She is also Research Associate of the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Institute at Tulane University, USA, as well as a Research Fellow of the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP). She has extensive experience in policy-oriented economic research, particularly in the areas of labour market analysis, education, public finance, and health, and currently also heads the Labour, Employment and Human Resource Development Unit at IPS.
Her research has been published in both local and international journals, book chapters, and reports; and she has also collaborated with, and served as a consultant to, numerous international organissations, including the World Bank, UNDP, ADB, UNESCO, UNICEF, ADBI, and ILO. She was the lead author of Sri Lanka’s second National Human Development Report (2012).
Dr Arunatilake has also served on several national-level committees on labour, employment, human resource development, migration, health sector reform, and tobacco and alcohol policy formulation.
She holds a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics (summa cum laude) from the University of the South, USA, and an MA and PhD in Economics from Duke University, USA.
