Thilini Agampodi

I obtained my medical degree (MBBS) from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. I also hold a double masters: in community medicine (University of Colombo) and in public health (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK). My doctoral degree was on bridging social epidemiology and maternal mental health and included the first systematic review on social capital tools in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the largest in-depth qualitative exploration of social capital in pregnancy and the development of the first tool to capture social capital in pregnancy in LMICs.  

I have worked as a community physician, as an anesthetist and a master trainer of several maternal and child health programmes. I am a grant holder of many public health initiatives that covers, maternal health, social capital, tropical diseases and mental health. During the fifteen years of experience as a community physician and a Professor and the Head of the Department of Community Medicine in the medical school, I have engaged in numerous teaching activities, community health promotion and research and have engaged in facilitating and supervising global health students of well-known Universities under collaborative work.  

I was the chief Student Counselor (2012-15) in the Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka. I worked on mental health research since 2005 where I assessed mental health problems of tsunami affected adolescents and then moved on further in adolescent mental health, mental health during pregnancy and mental health of medical undergraduates. I pioneered the development of mindfulness-based interventions to improve maternal mental health in Sri Lanka. I am a qualitative research expert and have published qualitative work on social capital, child nutrition and reproductive health. I am the Principal Investigator of the Rajarata Pregnancy Cohort (RaPCo), the largest pregnancy cohort in Sri Lanka and one of the largest maternal cohort on social epidemiology and maternal mental health in LMICs.