List of Sri Lankan Americans
This is a list of notable Sri Lankan American citizens, including both original immigrants who obtained American citizenship and their American descendants, but does not include Sri Lankan nationals living or working in the U.S. The list includes a brief description of the reason for their notability.
Academics
- Rohan Abeyaratne – academic and engineer
- Athula Attygalle – professor in mass spectrometry
- Ananda Coomaraswamy – philosopher
- Sarath Gunapala – solid-state physicist, senior research scientist and group supervisor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Shelton Gunaratne – Professor Emeritus of Mass Communications at Minnesota State University Moorhead
- Ratnajeevan Hoole – professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University
- Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa – freemason, theosophist and president of the Theosophical Society Adyar
- Nalin Kulatilaka – Professor of Finance at School of Management
- Patrick Mendis – educator, diplomat, author, and executive in US government service
- Anura C. Perera – science writer, astronomer
- Nalin Samarasinha – astronomer, first Sri Lankan to have an asteroid named after him
- Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah – Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Harvard University
- Siva Sivananthan – professor, scientist and Director of the Microphysics Laboratory at the University of Illinois
- Sam Weerahandi – former professor; the first ASA Fellow of Sri Lankan origin
Architecture
Artists
Business
Film
- Thushari Jayasekera – actress, writer, emcee, and performance artist; with her role on NBC's Outsourced (2010-2011), she is the first American actress of Sri Lankan origin to play a principal role in a primetime show on a major American TV network
- Chandran Rutnam – film director, producer, screenwriter
- Fabianne Therese – actress, director
- Maya Stojan - actress
- Bernard White – actor, screenwriter, film director
- Gina Zamparelli – Los Angeles-based concert promoter, daughter of Maureen Hingert
- Sanjit De Silva – actor, known for roles in The Company Men and American Desi
Military
Musicians
- DeLon – rapper and record producer; first Sri Lankan-American to appear on the Billboard charts[1][2]
- Clarence Jey – US Billboard and Grammy-credited record producer and songwriter[3][4]
- Ranidu Lankage – rapper
- Ruwanga Samath – record producer and the president of The Bird Call Productions
Politicians
Rebels
Religion
Singers
Sports
Writers
- Indran Amirthanayagam – author
- V. V. Ganeshananthan – fiction writer, essayist, and journalist
- Patrick Mendis – educator, diplomat, author, and executive in US government service
- Mary Anne Mohanraj – speculative fiction writer and editor who helped found Strange Horizons[5]
- Nayomi Munaweera – author
- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha – poet, writer, educator, social activist
- Romesh Ratnesar – journalist, author
- Rosemary Rogers – best-selling author of romance novels in the US; has been on the New York Times best-sellers list
- Sunil Yapa – fiction writer, author of Your Heart Is a Muscle The Size of a Fist (2016), which he promoted as a guest on Late Night with Seth Meyers
Others
See also
References
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