Visiting Scholars and Adjunct Faculty
Seela Aladuwaka
Visiting Faculty, Global Gender Studies
Senior Lecturer, the Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
Phone: 716-645-0791
Email: seelaa@buffalo.edu
Education:
Ph.D. West Virginia University (Geography).
Recent Courses:
WS/AS Women in Contemporary Asia
WS466 Women, Work and Social change
WS205 Women in the Global System
Research Interest:
Poverty and micro-credit, gender planning, women and health, women and sustainable development.
Bio:
Dr Seela Aladuwaka joined the Department of Global Gender Studies in fall 2008 as a Visiting Scholar. She was a Fulbright scholar at American University, where she obtained an M.A. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Dr. Aladuwak's special areas of research include gender and development with special emphasis on poverty and microcredit. She has been the principle researcher on various projects related to women and the environment funded by Asia Foundation and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Sri Lanka. She was also the Assistant Director (Research) at the International Center for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Kandy, Sri Lanka from January 2007 to April 2008. In her research, she focuses on women’s work in the informal sector in the South Asian context, women’s participation in sustainable development, and gender issues in relocation and displaced communities. She also works on issues relate to gender and health with special focus on HIV and female works on plantation communities in Sri Lanka. Her latest publication was "Geographic Perspective of Safe Motherhood in the Hill Country of Sri Lanka" in Marriage & Family Review. Dr. Aladuwaka has also done research on the Tsunami in Sri Lanka, focusing on livelihood development, housing construction, and gender.
Ram Alagan
Visiting Faculty, Global Gender Studies
Senior Lecturer, the Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
Phone: 716-645-0791
Email: ralagan@buffalo.edu
Education:
Ph.D. University of West Virginia (Geography)
Recent Courses:
WS560 Gender, Labor and Environment in the Global Economy
WS540 New Ethnographic Methods
WS680 Gender, Disaster and Human Security
WS225 Violence in Gendered World.
Research Interests:
The integration of Participatory GIS (PGIS) and Geo-Visualization (GVIS) into Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and into other social research areas such as disaster management, development, global economy, cultural studies, geo-politics, safe motherhood, health, and gender.
Bio:
Dr. Ram Alagan joined the Department of Global Gender Studies in 2008 as a Visiting Scholar. His interdisciplinary research interests include developing a deeper understanding of the global economy and its implication on environment, economy, governments, labor, and gender as it relates to local and international development in the context of Cultural Geography. Dr. Alagan is working on an Environmental Assessment and GIS integration manuscript entitled "Using Participatory GIS (PGIS) to Enhance Environmental Impact Assessment Process: A Case Study Transportation Project in West Virginia." He was the co-author of a recently published work titled, "Geographical Perspectives on Safe Motherhood in the Hill Country of Sri Lanka: A Case Study of the Doragala Tea Plantation in Pussellawa" (Marriage & Family Review). Apart from his research activities, he is also involved in diverse activities in the following institutions: Research Fellow and EIA Course Coordinator at the Center for Environmental Studies, University of Peradeniya; Senior GIS Consultant, Plan International Sri Lanka; Secretary, Voice of Hantana, an Environmental NGO in Sri Lanka; Senior GIS Advisor for International Union for Conservation of Nature, Sri Lanka; and Senior Research Fellow, Global Vision, an NGO - Centre for Knowledge Advancement in Sri Lanka. He has also been a Fulbright scholar at Ohio University where he obtained his MA.