CPD Welcomes Visiting Fulbright Scholar Sarala Fernando

USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy is pleased to host Fulbright Professional Scholar Sarala Fernando for Fall 2011. While at the Center, she will research the training challenges faced by developing countries with small cadres of diplomats and the support of public diplomacy initiatives.

A native of Sri Lanka, Fernando has been the Director General of the Bandaranaike International Diplomatic Training Institute in Colombo, Sri Lanka since 2008. Until 2007, she served in the Sri Lankan Foreign Service including Ambassadorial postings in Thailand (with concurrent accreditation to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos), in Sweden (with concurrent accreditation to all the Nordic and Baltic countries) and as Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations and International Organizations in Geneva, (with concurrent accreditation to the Holy See).

Fernando's past research interests have included looking at links between garden history and early diplomatic relations in the 2009 limited edition book Gardens of Lanka and Sri Pada: Peak Heritage of Lanka, to be released at the end of 2011.

For information about Sarala Fernando's CPD Conversations in Public Diplomacy talk on November 1st, please click here.