Dileni Gunewardena holds a doctorate in Economics from American University, Washington, D.C and a B.A. (Honours) in Economics from the University of Peradeniya, where she is Professor of Economics (Chair). Her publications include work on gender and ethnic wage gaps, child nutrition and growth, and consumption and multidimensional poverty. She recently led a research project on examining the links between skills, education and labour market outcomes from a gender perspective in 13 middle income countries, part of which is a background paper to the World Development Report 2018. She has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Brookings Institute Echidna Global Scholar, and has twice won Global Development Network (GDN) awards. She has contributed to several World Bank poverty profiles on Sri Lanka as well as to National Human Development Reports on Sri Lanka and reports on progress toward the Millennium Development Goals in Sri Lanka. She has consulted for the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank. She is the Team Leader of the National Human Development Report 2019. She is a member of a scientific support team of the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP) Research Network and leads an initiative to develop an online course in Gender Economics for PEP. She has taught short courses for the World Bank Institute’s South Asia Region Workshops. She was the founder coordinator of the Master of Development Practice (MDP) Programme at the University of Peradeniya, having successfully led a team from the University of Peradeniya to obtain a MacArthur Foundation Grant to develop and launch this programme. She currently leads the initiative to promote postgraduate teaching and research in Gender Economics, at the University of Peradeniya, an initiative funded by the Open Society Foundation, and supported by American University in Washington, D.C.
