Piyumi Fonseka is the Communications Manager at LIRNEasia, where she leads and executes strategic communication initiatives. She is responsible for distilling complex policy research into accessible and engaging content for diverse audiences.
Before transitioning to strategic communications, she worked the Deputy Editor – Investigations the Daily Mirror, Sri Lanka’s most circulated daily English print outlet, where she specialized in social issues investigations. Since 2014, she has covered many local and regional issues.
Currently pursuing her Masters in Media Research at the University of Colombo, Piyumi holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Mass Communication from the Malayalam Manorama School of Communication in Kerala, India. Additionally, she has studied Journalism and Criminal Law at the University of Colombo.
Piyumi is also the recipient of Young Reporter of the Year in 2015 and the Investigative Journalist of the Year in 2021 at the Sri Lankan Journalism Awards for Excellence organized by the Sri Lanka Press Institute and Editors’ Guild. Her reporting in highlighting the plight of Tamil Sri Lankan refugees, languishing in the Tamil Nadu refugee camps was shortlisted for the Young Journalist Award in 2017, organized by the Thomson Foundation and the Foreign Press Association of the UK.
She has also successfully completed World Press Institute fellowship in the USA and the Edward R Murrow Research and Investigations – International Visitor Leadership Programme (IVLP) organized by the State Department, studying about American media and best practices of the media field.
Previously, she has won fellowships and attended several international training programmes including Future News Worldwide Conference in London, UK, organized by the British Council, Scotland in July 2019, Third Asian Investigative Journalism Conference held in South Korea in July 2018 and 11th Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Hamburg, Germany in September 2019.