Shashika Bandara is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Population Health at Monash University Malaysia. His research focuses on social and structural determinants of health, global health policy, and governance. He received his PhD from McGill University and his master’s in global health from Duke University.

Before joining Monash University Malaysia, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Global Public Health at McGill University’s School of Population and Global Health. His work examined consensus building in global health and equity in global health education. He co-led research on policy exemplars addressing structural discrimination and health, in collaboration with the Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health. He was a lead instructor in global health courses and an executive council member of the McGill Global Health Program.

He has consulted for the World Health Organization on implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and contributed to WHO work on measuring access to medicines. He is an academic editor of PLOS Global Public Health. His peer-review work includes BMJ, BMJ Global Health, Health Policy and Planning, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Global Public Health, and PLOS Biology.

He previously worked as a policy associate at the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University. His experience in human rights policy advocacy includes work in Sri Lanka and South Asia with the Law and Society Trust and in collaboration with Forum Asia. He has also worked in humanitarian settings with CARE International. His earlier training was in molecular biology, and he conducted cancer immunology research at Johns Hopkins University.

His awards include the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship and support from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé and Duke University. He has also received recognition for teaching, human rights advocacy, and mentorship.

He is originally from Sri Lanka and enjoys the sea.