Professor Vajira H. W. Dissanayake MBBS (Colombo), PhD (Nottingham), FNASSL, FIAHSI is the Dean of the Faculty and Senior Professor (Chair) in the Department of Anatomy, Genetics, and Biomedical Informatics of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has spearheaded various initiatives in the fields of genetics, genomics, biomedical informatics and biotheics in Sri Lanka and globally. He and his team has authored more than 150 paper and received more than 40 local and international awards for their work. In recognition of his scientific achievements he was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka in 2013 – the youngest fellow of the Academy at that time, a fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics in 2020 – the first Sri Lankan fellow of the Academy, and conferred the Sri Lankan national titular honour of Vidya Jyothi in 2019.

He has held the following leadership positions in Sri Lanka and internationally including the following: President, Sri Lanka Medical Association (2012); President, Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka (2009-2019); President, Commonwealth Medical Association (2016- 2019); President, Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics (2019-2020); Board Member, Steering Committee, Forum for Ethical Review Committees in Asia and the Western Pacific (since 2010); Chairperson, Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health (since 2018); Chairperson, Commonwealth Health Professions and Partners Alliance (2021-2022). He is the current President of the Sri Lanka Medical Council.