Dr. H.A.N Dharmagunawardhane

Head of the Department
Senior Lecturer (Gr.II)

• Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Science and Engineering (2017): State University of New York at Stony Brook (Stony Brook University), New York

Dissertation: Synthesis of oxynitride materials for solar water splitting: investigations with ambient pressure and high pressure synthesis techniques

• Master of Science in Materials Science (2011): Missouri State University, Springfield, Missouri USA.

Thesis: Investigations of Radiolysis Effects on Iron Species and Reaction of Fe₃O₄ Nanoparticles with Metal Ions Under Hydrothermal Conditions

• Bachelor of Science in Applied Sciences (2008) : University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya Sri Lanka.

• Senior lecturer at the Faculty of Technology, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka (04/2019  To date )
•  Coordinator/Senior lecturer at Science Industry Interaction Cell, Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya. (03/2017 to 03/2019)
• Research Assistant at Stony Brook University. (08/2012 to 12/2016)
•  Teaching Assistant at Stony Brook University. (08/2011 to 08/2013)
• Graduate Teaching Assistant at Missouri State University. (08/2009 to 06/2011) 
• Operation’s Manager, Blue Bay Minerals International, Pilimathalawa, Sri Lanka. (08/2008 to 08/2009)

• Clays and Minerals, Natural Materials

• Dharmagunawardhane, HA Naveen, Alwin James, Qiyuan Wu, William R. Woerner, Robert M. Palomino, Alexandra Sinclair, Alexander Orlov, and John B. Parise. “Unexpected visible light driven photocatalytic activity without cocatalysts and sacrificial reagents from a (GaN) 1–x (ZnO) x solid solution synthesized at high pressure over the entire composition range.” RSC Advances 8, no. 16 (2018): 8976-8982.).
• Woerner, W. R., Qian, G. R., Oganov, A. R., Stephens, P. W., Dharmagunawardhane, H. N., Sinclair, A., & Parise, J. B.. Combined Theoretical and in Situ Scattering Strategies for Optimized Discovery and Recovery of High-Pressure Phases: A Case Study of the GaN–Nb2O5 System. Inorganic Chemistry, 2016, 55(7), 3384-3392.
• Dharmagunawardhane, H. N., Woerner, W. R., Wu, Q., Huang, H., Chen, X., Orlov, A., … & Parise, J. B.. Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution using nanocrystalline gallium oxynitride spinel. Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2014, 2(45), 19247-19252.
• Mayanovic, R. A., Anderson, A. J., Dharmagunawardhane, H. A., Pascarelli, S., & Aquilanti, G.. Monitoring synchrotron X-ray-induced radiolysis effects on metal (Fe, W) ions in high-temperature aqueous fluids. Journal of synchrotron radiation, 2012,19(5), 797-805.

Conference Presentations:

• Dharmagunawardhane, H.A.N., Mayanovic, R.A., A.J. Anderson, W.A. Bassett, S. Pascarelli, Rate kinetics of synchrotron radiation-induced radiolysis of Fe²⁺ and Fe³⁺ ions in aqueous solutions to 500 °C, V.M. Goldschmidt Conference 2010, Knoxville, TN, USA
• Dharmagunawardhane, H.A.N., Yan, H., Dempster, J., Mayanovic R.A., Gupta R., Characterization of Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles hydrothermally treated in the presence of Ni²⁺ Zn²⁺ and Co²⁺ to 400 °C, The 56^th Midwest Solid State Physics Conference, Norman, OK, USA October 9-10, 2010.
• Dharmagunawardhane, H. A. N., Woerner W. R., James A., Sinclair A., Wu Q., Orlov A., Parise J. B.,Investigating photocatalytic activity of high pressure synthesized GaN-ZnO solid solutions over the entire composition range. MRS Fall Meeting 2015 ,Boston, MA, USA