Writer and a trainer based in Colombo Sri Lanka, Amantha is the Asia Pacific Coordinator for the DART Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia Journalism School. With over 15 years of experience working in Sri Lanka and overseas, he has covered the island’s civil war and post conflict developments for international and local outlets, as a correspondent for TIME, Thomson Reuters Foundation, al-Jazeera, the Guardian, Inter Press News Service and IRIN. He has also worked extensively in Asia on issues like extreme weather events, natural disasters, post conflict situations, climate change and climate negotiations.


Amantha has been on assignment in over 20 countries including India, Indonesia, Nepal, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, UK, US, Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh and Brazil. He was an Ochberg Fellow at the Columbia Journalism School in 2013. He was also a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley (2003-04), a Jefferson Fellow at the East West Center, University of Hawaii (2001) and a DART Asia Pacific Fellow (2011). He was also a co-winner of the Prince Albert/United Nations Global Prize for Climate Change reporting 2012,and PANOS South Asia Climate Change Media Excellence Award 2014. He was part of the Reuters team that won the 2016 SOPA Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting.

Twitter: @AmanthaP