Amarasiri De Silva

PhD
  • Adjunct Professor

I am a cultural and medical anthropologist. My research has focused on health and illness in Sri Lanka. My fieldwork in Sri Lanka has been conducted in coastal fishing communities, in war-affected

Education

I received my BA in Sociology at the University of Ceylon, Sri Lanka, MSc at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok, Thailand, and my PhD in Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. My fieldwork for my master’s degree was conducted in a coastal fishing village in the southern

Teaching

I have taught research methodology, medical anthropology and applied anthropology in the Department of Sociology, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, where I was a senior professor. In 2013 and 2014, I taught courses on medical sociology, aging and global health in the Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh. My current research at BCHS is focused on Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Etiology (CKDu), an emergent disease found in Sri Lanka, and in many