Prof. Samantha Karunaratne of Qujing Normal University and Sugath Rathnayake, a lecturer in the Department of Sinhala Studies at Yunnan University in China, have been awarded the Yunnan Friendship Award.
This is the first time that a Sri Lankan has been awarded this award, and two Sri Lankans have received the Yunnan Provincial Friendship Award this time.
This award is presented by the Yunnan Provincial Government to recognise foreign experts who have made invaluable contributions to develop Yunnan Province.
Foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions for advanced concepts, advanced technologies, and the latest achievements in the fields of science and technology, education, health, news, publishing, culture, art, and sports are recognised through the awards.
The winners of the Yunnan Friendship Award are conferred medals, certificates, and a one-time bonus. Apart from the two Sri Lankans, eight other foreign experts received this award. Prof. Karunaratna who works at the Qujing Normal University in China was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the Kunming Institute of Botany, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
To date, he has published approximately 250 SCI publications with an H-index of 44 and 12,750 citations and has co-authored four books. According to the rankings by Stanford University, Prof. Karunarathna was recognised as one of the world’s top two percent scientists in 2022, 2023, and 2024. His research interests are taxonomy, phylogeny, and domestication of mushrooms.
Lecturer Sugath Rathnayake is the founder of the Sinhala Studies Department of Yunnan University. He previously worked in the Sinhala service of China Radio International (CRI) in Beijing.
He has rendered an outstanding service to set up and develop the Sinhala Studies Department of the Yunnan University. Among his contributions is taking the initiative to set up the Sri Lanka-China Friendship Library with a donation of 1,000 Sinhala books.
