Dr.
d. h. s. Maithripala
............................................................................................
D
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, UoP
BSc. Eng (SL), MSc (US), MPhil (SL), Ph.D. (US)
r. D.H.S. Maithripala, a senior lecturer at Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya
is an award-winning researcher. His research interests include Modelling off nano-
scale electronic and thermal transport, and Geometric Methods in Mechanics and
Control with applications to robotics. Following is an interview conducted with him about his
experiences so far.
1. Sir, why don't we start
with your childhood and
life before you entered the
university? Can you tell us
a little about it?
It was a pretty ordinary
childhood. I started schooling
in a school in Matara where
the majority of the students
were from a rough and
tough background. I think
that exposure set me up
well for life. For an example,
the fellowship they had
among each other was very
strong and has left a strong
impression on me.
things happen the way they
do. I thought that engineering
was the best place to learn
all these things. Later, after
coming to the faculty, I came
to the realization that it was
I have two brothers. My not so.
father is a lawyer and my
mother is a housewife. I 3. There must be a lot
have two younger brothers. of memories in your
My youngest brother was university life. We’d be
also a graduate from the pleased to know about
Department of Mechanical your life at the university.
Engineering of the University The academic life at the
of Peradeniya. My other University bored me. I felt
brother is a graduate of the frustrated to find out that the
School of Computing of the engineering faculty was not
University of Colombo.
the thing I expected it to be.
It was the same old school
2. Why did you choose to system all over again. So
become an engineer?
basically, I hated everything
Well, Maths and Science
were
my
natural
attraction. However, I
didn't pay significant
attention even to
these
subjects
until I came to
A/L s. During
this time, I
developed
a
curiosity
t o w a r d s
learning why
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University of Peradeniya GAUGE Magazine
except for maths and some
physics related courses.
The reason which drove me
towards engineering was
the desire in me to learn
the causes of observed
phenomena. Instead of
learning that, I was driven
to a path where theories
were taught without rigorous
derivation and applied out
of the blue. We were asked
to simply take them for