> She is the 12th president of the University of Alberta, one of Canada's
> most respected research-intensive universities. Building strong
> international partnerships is a signature feature of her leadership.
> The International aspect involves German Research Centres, the Aga Khan
> University, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) apart from others.
>
> Indira Samarasekera is probably the first Tamil to become the president
> of a major North American university. Samarasekera began her career at
> the University of British Columbia as a professor in the Department of
> Materials Engineering. Using her knowledge of heat transfer and stress
> analysis, she researched new processes of steel production involving a
> major emphasis on continuous casting and hot rolling. Samarasekera has
> also consulted for companies all around the world. Prior to her coming
> to the University of Alberta, Samarasekera, for five years, served as
> Vice-President Research at the University of British Columbia.
> She was born in 1952 into a Tamil family in Sri Lanka, though her
> earliest memories are not of Ceylon, as it was then called, but of
> England. When she was three, her father, a surgeon, took his young
> family to the United Kingdom for a period of post-graduate work.
> Consequently, her early impressions were very different from those of
> her peers back home: ballet, English gardens, very proper schooling,
> and the full gamut of Western technology, including television. But
> with this worldliness came challenges. Returning home three years
> later, she had to become trilingual in order to reintegrate into
> post-colonial Sri Lanka's complex and divided society.
> At the time, the country was drifting toward a lengthy civil war that
> would displace nearly 500,000 people and leave an estimated 70,000
> dead. After the first countrywide riots broke out in 1958, permanently
> dividing the nation, Samarasekera's family fled to the city of Jaffna,
> in the Tamil-dominated north, nearly losing their lives in the process.
> We felt it would be safer for us in the north, she says. It was an
> incredible place to grow up: culture, hard-working people, extreme
> climate — it reminds me a little bit of Alberta. However, the influx of
> Tamils attempting to escape violence meant that her young world was
> complicated:There was a growing political tension, although there was a
> great deal of goodwill at the population level. My best friends are
> Sinhalese, and I [eventually] married one.
> She was the eldest of four children, and while none of the women in her
> family had ever been to university, it seemed clear early on that her
> father, in particular, was absolutely determined that his daughters for
> sure — obviously his sons — four of us would receive a university
> education. She excelled at math and physics, and became fascinated with
> the notion of developing technology to improve her world amid the
> strife of politics and religion. What would the world be without
> airplanes that never fall out of the sky? she wondered. After prep
> schooling in Colombo at the Ladies College, which featured debating and
> athletics, she enrolled at the University of Ceylon, and in 1974 became
> the first woman in her country to become a mechanical engineer. But she
> had to push her way forward: and wanted to do mechanical, and they
> hadn't allowed any women up to then,and she says. I went in and said, I
> want to do mechanical, and you are going to have to let me. I think
> that helped me overcome natural fears of operating at the frontier, of
> pushing boundaries.
> At about this time, Sri Lanka passed laws making it more difficult for
> Tamils to enter university and find public employment. That, she says,
> was when young Tamils began to mobilize around the notion of having to
> fight for their rights and for their independence — which to me was
> writing on the wall.
> An early incarnation of the Tamil Tigers had emerged in the early
> 1970s, and they were already experimenting with bombings and other
> tactics that would help define modern terrorism. Samarasekera loves her
> country — she still returns at least once every three years — but she
> knew she had to leave. After a brief stint as a maintenance engineer at
> a Shell oil refinery.It was very boring, when she was awarded a
> Fulbright scholarship.So I got married at age twenty-three to a fellow
> mechanical engineer, and we came to the United States. To the
> University of California at Davis, to be precise, and then on to the
> University of British Columbia for her doctorate. Along the way, she
> had two children, one of whom grew up to study law, and the other,
> medicine.
> She became a Canadian citizen in 1980, amid a challenging period of
> balancing her young family and a demanding career. At one point, she
> was on the brink of quitting her doctorate studies, until her thesis
> adviser pulled her aside.You have no right to do that,he said. You have
> been given all these talents. Don't waste them
> Upon graduation, she could only find a temporary teaching
> contract at UBC, but in time it led to a tenure track position, and she
> became only the second woman appointed to the university's engineering
> faculty. Her marriage eventually failed, but her career thrived: she
> went on to have a major influence on the international steel industry,
> using mathematical models to predict and correct subtle defects, which
> facilitated major advances in quality and efficiency.
> Under her administration, many initiatives have been
> achieved at the University of Alberta, among them the development of a
> renewed vision and mission in Dare to Discover and new academic plan in
> Dare to Deliver; the establishment of the Killam Research Fund for the
> Social Sciences, Humanities, and Fine Arts and the Li Ka Shing
> Institute of Virology; the redevelopment and opening of Enterprise
> Square ($86M); and the formation of the Schools for Energy and the
> Environment and Public Health. During her tenure, the university has
> completed and opened the Canadian Centre for Isotopic Microanalysis
> ($15M), the National Institute for Nanotechnology ($60M) and Health
> Research Innovation Facilities ($300M) and has initiated construction
> of the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science ($400M) and the
> Edmonton Clinic ($950M) in partnership with Alberta Health Services
>
> Serving. the wider community in several ways, Dr. Samarasekera sits on
> several local and national boards. She is Chair of NINT (the National
> Institute of Nanotechnology), sits on the Board of Directors of the
> Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), the Public Policy Forum of Canada,
> and STIC (Science, Technology and Innovation Council). She was part of
> a group of special advisors to the Canadian Minister of Environment at
> the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, has been moderator, presenter and
> facilitator at the 2010 and 2011 World Economic Forum, and was a part
> of the Prime Minister's roundtable on Canada-India higher education
> cooperation. She also participated in the 2008 and 2009 G8 summits of
> university presidents in Hokkaido and Turin respectively.
>
> A sought-after speaker, Dr. Samarasekera has addressed local, national,
> and international audiences on various issues in post-secondary
> education and research. She has been invited to speak to the National
> Science Foundation in the US, the Science and Technology Forum in Japan
> and to the Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce in London.
>
> Over a professional career spanning three decades, Dr. Samarasekera has
> distinguished herself as one of Canada's leading metallurgical
> engineers. She was awarded the Order of Canada in 2002 in recognition
> of outstanding contributions to steel process engineering. Dr.
> Samarasekera has been a consultant to steel companies around the world.
>
> Dr. Samarasekera is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow
> of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Canadian
> Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIMM). She has received
> honorary degrees from the University of British Columbia, Queen's
> University Belfast and the University of Waterloo.
>
> Dr Samarasekera is also kept busy outside the University of Alberta.
> Her numerous activities include being a member of the Prime
> Minister’s Advisory Committee on the Public Service and sitting on
> the Conference Board of Canada. She is also involved with the Public
> Policy Forum of Canada, the Canadian Health Industries Partnership, the
> Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, and the Visiting
> Committee for MIT.
>
> Her international experiences and especially her deep ties to Sri Lanka
> have shaped Samarasekera's view of the world and strengthened her
> humanitarian consciousness. She is passionate about eradicating
> violence and promoting equality, and she strongly believes in the value
> of education as a means of achieving prosperity and well-being.
>
> COURTESY:SOUTH
>
>Old Obituary notice.
>
> ARULPRAGASAM - ALBERT CHELVARAJ (RAJU) MB FRCS August 9th 1924 -
> November 24th, 2006, (Senior ENT Surgeon - General Hospital, Colombo
> 1968-1979, Consultant ENT Surgeon, General Hospitals, Galle, Jaffna and
> Kandy, Post-Doctoral Hays Fullbright Scholar 1974-1975) (passed away
> peacefully after a brief illness. Beloved husband of Balasundari Cooke,
> son of the late Dr A.R. Arulpragasam and Bertha (Chellappa), loving
> father of Dr Indira Samarasekera (Canada), Dr Ayesha Muthuveloe (UK),
> Amalraj Arulpragasam (Canada) and Ajit Rohan Arulpragasam (Canada),
> affectionate father-in-law of Harindra Samarasekera (Canada), Dr Sam
> Muthuveloe (UK) and Heather Arulpragasam (Canada), loving grandfather
> of Dinesh, Anjalika, Mayani, Theruni, Asia and Hunter, loving brother
> of Aruljothy, Chandra and Jega Arulpragasam, affectionate
> brother-in-law of Mohini Thambyah, Dr Raja Cooke, Lohini Arulpragasam
> and Emily Arulpragasam. His Mortal Remains will be at his residence at
> 77/5, Ward Place, Colombo 7 from 10.00 a.m. on Tuesday 28th November,
> 2006. Celebration of life service will be held at St. Michael's Church,
> Polwatte at 10.00 a.m. Wednesday 29th November, 2006 followed by burial
> at General Cemetery, Kanatte.
