Dr. Ranil Wickramasinghe obtained his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He obtained his PhD, also in Chemical Engineering, from the University of Minnesota. After obtaining his PhD, Professor Wickramasinghe worked in the biotechnology industry for Sepracor Inc. and later Hemasure Inc., in Marlborough, MA as well as Biogen IDEC in Boston, MA. He joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Colorado State University in 1998. He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Arkansas in 2011 where he holds the Ross E. Martin Chair in Emerging Technologies.
Professor Wickramasinghe's research focuses on membrane based separations for applications in biotechnology, biofuels and environmental engineering. His group has significant expertise designing unit operations such as microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and membrane adsorbers. Prof. Wickramasinghe has published 200 peer reviewed articles and has given over a 300 conference presentations. Prof Wickramasinghe is a licensed Professional Engineer.