Shashika Bandara will give a public talk titled “Writing, Equity, and Global Health Policy,” at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 19 in Gorecki 204A on the College of Saint Benedict campus.

Bandara will also meet with colleagues and students at Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s University on Sept. 19 and 20. His visit is co-sponsored by English, Global Health and Narrative Practice.

Bandara is a doctoral student focusing on global health policy and governance at McGill University. He completed his undergraduate degree in 2011 at SJU focusing on biology and English. Following his undergraduate degree, he conducted cancer immunology research at Johns Hopkins University.

He holds a master’s degree in global health with a policy focus from Duke University and was a policy associate at the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at the Duke Global Health Institute.

Bandara has professional experience in human rights policy advocacy in South Asia and disaster preparedness and response in post-conflict zones of Sri Lanka. He was recently named a Vanier Scholar by the Government of Canada, an award for those who exhibit outstanding leadership and scholarly achievement.

Bandara has collaborated with, and provided information to, both Care International and the United Nations and has served as editor-in-chief of McGill Global Health Perspectives – a site that focuses on communicating global health research/opinions to the public.