Education
Ph.D., Physical/Theoretical Chemistry, Mississippi State University, USA, 2015
M.S., Management and Information Technology, University of Kelaniya, 2009
B.Sc., Special degree in Chemistry, University of Colombo, 2004
Research Areas
Ab initio Calculations, Statistical Thermodynamics, Molecular Dynamics, Computational Chemistry Programming
Teaching Areas
Physical Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics, Computational Chemistry, Information Technology
Dr Ratnaweera is specialized in theoretical and computational chemistry. His PhD is on developing a new method to determine the entropy of internal rotational modes of small molecules. He also expertise in molecular dynamics and quantum mechanical calculations. He has established a center named as “Computational Research and Learning Center (CRLC)” to foster the Computational Chemistry Research at IChemC.
His research is mainly focused on natural products inspired drug discovery based on computational chemistry methods. Natural products play a key role as a potential therapeutic drug leads, however, an experimental determination of activities is time-consuming. Therefore, his group applies simple and inexpensive computational methods to determine the drug activities of natural products particularly those extracted from Sri Lankan flora and fauna. He also collaborating with experimental research groups to develop drugs for cancer therapy using Linermarine analogs and small peptide chains via molecular simulations.
