Board of Directors

Nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Ambassador Julie Chung has been the U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka since February 2022. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, Ambassador Chung has previously held senior positions throughout the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere.

Prior to her current role, Ambassador Chung served as the Acting Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. She also has extensive experience in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, including as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Japan, Deputy Chief of Mission in Cambodia, and Economic Counselor in Thailand. In addition, she has served at the U.S. embassies in Iraq, Colombia, Vietnam, and Japan, and the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China. She also served as an advisor on nonproliferation discussions of the Agreed Framework with North Korea while working in the Office of Korean Affairs in Washington.

As a child, Ambassador Chung immigrated to the United States from Korea and was raised in Huntington Beach, California. She received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California San Diego and an M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University and joined the Foreign Service in 1996 in the first cohort of the Thomas R. Pickering Fellowship program. Ambassador Chung has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Presidential Rank Award and the Secretary’s Distinguished Honor Award, and speaks Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and Khmer.

Heidi Hattenbach is the Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy to Sri Lanka,
responsible for overseeing the Embassy’s extensive education, outreach, and cultural programming as well as media and messaging efforts.

 
A career Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State, Heidi recently completed a
prestigious Pearson Fellowship, serving as a foreign policy advisor to the U.S. Senate. She previously served as the Spokesperson and Press Office Chief for the State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and managed media and messaging for the Special Representative on Afghanistan Reconciliation. Earlier in her career, Heidi served in Mumbai (India), Pretoria (South Africa), and Mexico City (Mexico), as well as in Washington DC and at the United Nations. Heidi, who hails from California, is married to NASA program director Dr. Henry Throop and has three (fantastic!) children.

Sharlina Hussain-Morgan holds a B.S. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) and a M.A. in conflict resolution from Georgetown University. She is
an experienced and innovative multilingual American diplomat in communications and
international education, and has led teams of 20-40 people from various backgrounds to be
highly organized, detail-oriented, resourceful, innovative, and forward thinking. Her
experiences in international engagement and policy span five continents. During her Foreign
Service, she covered human rights issues in North Korea, Cambodia, and Thailand in the Bureau
for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Prior to her DC assignment, she served in Ghana,
Pakistan, Egypt, and the United Kingdom. While in Karachi, Pakistan, she served as
spokesperson and led interagency U.S. government communications for Sindh and Balochistan
provinces. Ms. Hussain-Morgan constantly seeks out paths to create networks for women and
people of color in public and foreign policy.

Sonia Hirdaramani began her career in finance and entertainment, but after relocating to Sri Lanka from the United States, she shifted her focus to personal investing and non-profit work.

Sonia leverages her extensive background in finance from her tenure at the investment bank, Morgan Stanley, towards her portfolio and role on the Investment Committee of HERCapital in Sri Lanka, the country’s first gender smart ESG fund. A staunch advocate for gender equality, Sonia also has focused past efforts on UN Women (HeForShe) and microfinance at the UNDP.

Previously, she successfully co-managed her family’s South Asian entertainment company, earning recognition from the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and the Minister of State for Overseas Indian Affairs.

She also actively promotes stronger ties between the United States and South Asia through her involvement in various non-profit organizations, including serving as a member of the Board of Columbia University’s International Advisory Board, Nexus Global’s India Steering Committee and the Board of the US-Sri Lanka Fulbright Commission.

A graduate of Columbia University, Sonia founded IVYSL, a networking group for the Ivy League alumni of Sri Lanka. A life-long learner, Sonia has continued her education through courses and programs at Harvard University, Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School and the Indian School of Business.

Ravi Dias had a distinguished career in banking, retiring as Managing Director/CEO of Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC. He also served as Managing Director of Commercial Bank Development and a Director of Commercial Insurance Brokers. He earned an LLB and was honor to be named a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in the UK. He was a Humphrey Fellow in which he spent 10 months in the U.S. studying banking and finance.

Ravi is presently Chairman of Seylan Bank PLC and Ceylon Tea Marketing (Pvt) Ltd. He serves as Independent Non-Executive Director both at Carsons Cumberbatch PLC and Tokyo Cement Company (Lanka) PLC. He is past Chairman of Senkadagala Finance PLC. Other boards he served on include Lanka Clear and Lanka Financial Services Bureau. Ravi was a past Council Member of the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon and Committee Member of Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

Deepika Udagama is Chair Professor of Law and former Head of the Department of Law at the University of Peradeniya. Professor Udagama is former Chairperson of Sri Lanka’s National Human Rights Commission. She was the Founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Colombo. She was Sri Lanka’s Alternate Member to the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and its Co-Special Rapporteur on Globalization and Its Impact on the Full Enjoyment of Human Rights. She was also a member of the UN Trust Fund for Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights. Professor Udagama holds LLB and LLM Degrees from the University of Colombo, and an LLM and Doctor of Juridical Science Degrees (JSD) from University of California-Berkeley. She was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Harvard Human Rights Centre. 

Nayani Melegoda serves as the Executive Director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Sri Lanka and Professor in International Relations at the University of Colombo. She previously served as the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at University of Colombo and Head of the Department of International Relations. Currently, she is the Country Expert (Sri Lanka) on Varieties of Democracy Project at University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Affiliated Researcher at the Institute of Peace Science, Hiroshima University (IPSHU) Japan.

Professor Melegoda was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar to the U.S. in 2004. She served as a member of the Postgraduate Standing Committee of the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka and the Standing Committee on Accreditation and Quality Assurance (SCAQA) of the Non-State Higher Education, Ministry of Higher Education. She is former University Coordinator for the National Defense College and member of the Prime Minister’s Office Task Force on Indian Ocean. Nayani was also a President of the Sri Lanka Federation of University Women.

She obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, Masters from the University of British Columbia in Canada, Advanced Diploma in Peace and Conflict Studies from University of Uppsala in Sweden, and Bachelors from the University of Colombo. She won a recognition award from the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) in Switzerland; a Zonta Woman of Achievement award; the Arayabatha Award (India) in the field of Education; and the Japan Foundation Award.