Tharaka Amarasinghe is a Project Manager and Statistician at LIRNEasia. He specialises in survey and sample design. He also leads statistical analysis for all LIRNEasia’s survey research projects.
Some of Tharaka’s current and past work includes:
- AfterAccess: A series of nationally representative surveys in Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, and Cambodia covering 15,000 households and individuals. He has conducted nationally representative studies on the PWD population in Sri Lanka and Nepal and a nationally representative study on SME’s in Sri Lanka. This project was funded by by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Ford Foundation.
- A nationwide proprietary survey on Mobile Disability Gap in Sri Lanka targeting the persons with disabilities and the general population of Sri Lanka covering 1,400 individuals funded by the GSMA Assistive Tech programme.
- A nationally representative survey on the Impact of COVID-19 on households and the workforce in India and Sri Lanka under the Inclusive Economies project which covers 7,500 (in India) and 2,500 (in Sri Lanka) households and individuals funded by IDRC.
- He has also worked on the Ecosystems of Engagement: Digital Platform and Women’s Work in the Sri Lanka and India project.
- Sri Lanka Social Safety Net Survey. A nationally representative survey covering 10,000 households in Sri Lanka. This project is funded by IDRC.
- Currently working on an experimental study to understand the effectiveness of methods to counter the information disorder in Sri Lanka funded by IDRC.
Prior to joining LIRNEasia, Tharaka worked at Hemas Pharmaceuticals, a blue-chip company listed in the Colombo Stock exchange as an Assistant Manager for Business Analysis. Prior to that he worked at Nielsen Sri Lanka for 4 years as a Senior Data Science Executive in Nielsen Retail Measurement Service, where he was also engaged in socioeconomic research as a Research Executive.
Tharaka holds a MSc in Applied Statistics from the University of Colombo and a BSc in Industrial Statistics and Mathematical Finance from the same university.