The Department of Chemistry is excited to welcome Panduka S. Piyaratne, Ph.D. to Colorado State University as the new Organic Lab Coordinator.

Panduka S. Piyaratne obtained his B.S. honors degree in Chemical Biology at University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Then he worked at National Dangerous Drugs Control Board of Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka Customs Narcotics Control Division, before entering the graduate program at the University of Maine. He earned his Ph.D. in Natural Products Chemistry in 2018 under Prof. Barbara J. W. Cole and Prof. Raymond C. Fort, Jr., in which he studied the medicinally important compounds in native spruces of Maine and developed methods for their extraction and purification.

Panduka has been a Teaching Assistant for the Organic Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry programs, and was awarded the 2017 Corell Graduate Fellowship, and Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Maine, in addition to several departmental awards recognizing his performance and commitment to teaching. He has served as a laboratory coordinator and visiting lecturer in the Organic Chemistry program at the University of Maine, before joining CSU.

At Colorado State, Panduka will coordinate the undergraduate organic chemistry laboratories in the Department of Chemistry at Colorado State University. He will be responsible for independently developing curriculum for the courses, developing implementation and training plans for students, managing chemical safety within the teaching laboratories and training and supervising student and non-student employees.

Welcome to CSU Panduka!