Dr. Wajira Balasooriya is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Biotechnology since 2014 and has served as the Head of the Department during 2017 - 2020. She serves as a Visiting Lecturer at the Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya. Wajira balasooriya possesses B.Sc. in Agriculture and M.Sc. Agriculture from University of Peradeniya and M.Sc. in Environmental Sanitation and Ph.D in applied biological sciences degrees from Ghent University, Belgium. She has post-doctoral research experiences at the Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois, USA and the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences at the University of Winnipeg, Canada.
Her research focuses on microbiota in the environment and their applications in soil fertility management and in environmental biotechnology and industrial biotechnology. Her current work is focused on soil and aquatic microalgae, cyanobacteria and biofilms and their potential applications. Her research works have been published in several SCI journals and she serves as a reviewer in number of journals as well. She has memberships in American Society for Microbiology, Global Soil Laboratory Network by FAO, Institute of Biology of Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Society for Microbiology and Soil Science Society Sri Lanka. She currently serves as the Editor of the journal of the soil science society of Sri Lanka.