M.R. Sooriyarachchi

Professor in Statistics

Academic Degrees

B.Sc. (Colombo)
P.G.Dip in Applied Statistics (Colombo)
M.Sc. Biometry (UK)
Ph.D. Statistics (UK)

Current Teaching

Research Project Coordinator: (Statistics Special, Statistics with Computer Science Special, Industrial Statistics Special)

Advisor: Categorical Data Analysis, Advanced Modelling, Medical Statistics

Research and Professional Experience

Research Experience: 20 years

Professional Experience: 23 years

Honors and Awards

The Mr. and Mrs. V.W. Samaranayake memorial prize for the best Statistics student at the B.Sc. degree, 1985.
rofessor Mohan Munasinghe award for the best Computer project at the B.Sc. degree, 1985.
Technical Cooperation Training Award sponsored by the Overseas Development Administration, U.K. 1988 for study towards an M.Sc.
University of Newcastle Postgraduate Research Scholarship, 1991
Note: I was awarded this scholarship but I did not accept it as I accepted an Open Commonwealth Scholarship for my Ph.D. at the University of Reading, U.K.
Award of a fellowship by COPEDEC for participation at COPEDEC III, in Mombasa, Kenya, 1991
Open (in open competition) Commonwealth postgraduate scholarship 1991, for study towards a Ph.D
Wellcome Trust U.K. award for Post-doctoral research, 2001.
Presidential Award for international research, 1999
University of Colombo award for excellence in research, 1999
Senior Research Fellow at the University of Reading, U.K. on the research project “Comparison of adaptive and group-sequential methods for Clinical Trials” funded by Swiss phamaceutical company, Novartis Pharma, 2002
Presidents Research Award, 2001
Visiting Research Fellow, MPS Research Unit, University of Reading,U.K. Position held from 1st October 2003 to 2007. This is awarded in recognition of contribution to research at MPS research unit.
University of Colombo award of felicitation for receiving a Presidential Award for Research in year 2001
International Society for Clinical Biostatistics Conference Scientist award for ISCB27, 2006.
NSF Travel award, 2006
Team member of the paper that won the International Society for Clinical Biostatistics Conference Scientist award for ISCB28, 2007.
International Society for Clinical Biostatistics Conference Scientist award for ISCB29, 2008.
NSF Travel award, 2008
Commonwealth Fellowship of 6 months duration to UK , 2009/10
Presidential Award for Scientific Research for 2003.
Presidential Award for Scientific Research for 2006.

Publications in Peer Reviewed Journals

Sooriyarachchi, M.R., Whitehead, J. A method for sequential analysis of survival data with non-proportional hazards. Biometrics 54, 1072-1084, 1998
Bolland, K.M., Sooriyarachchi, M.R. and Whitehead, J.
Sample size review in a head injury trial with ordered categorical responses
Statistics in Medicine 17, 2835-2847, 1998.
Whitehead, J. Whitehead, A., Todd, S., Bolland, K.M., and Sooriyarachchi, M.R. Mid-trial design reviews for sequential clinical trials, Statistics in Medicine 20, 165-176, 2001
Sooriyarachchi, M.R., Whitehead, J. Bolland, K., Whitehead, A., Matsushita, T. Incorporating data received after a sequential trial has stopped into the final analysis : implementation and comparison of methods, Biometrics 59, 701-709, 2003
Kelly, P. Sooriyarachchi, M.R., Stallard, N. and Todd, S.
A practical comparison of group-sequential and adaptive designs
Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics 15: 719 – 738, 2005.
Sooriyarachchi, M.R., Whitehead, J., Whitehead, A., Bolland, K.
The sequential analysis of binary responses: a score test for the case of three time points
Statistics in Medicine 25, 2196-2214, 2005.
Mohamad, F., Sooriyarachchi, M.R., Senarathna, L., Azhar, S. Sheriff, M.H.R., Buckley, N.A. and Eddleston, M. ‘Compliance for single and multiple dose regimes of superactivated charcoal: a prospective study of patients in a clinical trial.Clinical Toxicology :45, 1-4, 2007.
Kuruppumullage, P. , Sooriyarachchi, M.R.‘Log linear models for ordinal multidimensional categorical data’ The jounal of the National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka 35(1): 29-40, 2007.
Whitehead, A., Sooriyarachchi, M.R., Whitehead, J. ,Bolland, K. Incorporating intermediate binary responses into interim analyses of clinical trials: a comparison of four methods. Statistics in Medicine 27 : 1646 – 1666, 2008
Abeysekera W.W.M., Sooriyarachchi M.R. 'A novel method for testing goodness of fit of a proportional odds model: An application to an AIDS study' The journal of the National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka. 36(2) : 125-135, 2008
Dharmarathne, T.M.R.T. and Sooriyarachchi, M.R.‘Failure time regression to determine warranty policies of computers’ Sri Lankan Journal of Applied Statistics, Vol. 8 (Special Issue), 19-33, 2007.
Kuruppumullage, P. , Sooriyarachchi, M.R. ‘Design and analysis techniques for many-to-many matched case-control studies: An illustration using the Ille-et-Vilaine database for esophageal cancer’ Sri Lankan Journal of Applied Statistics, Vol. 8 (Special Issue), 55-70, 2007
Yatapana, P. S. Sooriyarachchi, M.R. ‘University selection among students of different streams : A comparison of methods’. The Sri Lankan Journal of Educational Research Volume 10, Issue 1, pages 1-22, 2006.
Abeysekera, W.W.M, Sooriyarachchi, M.R. ‘Use of Schoenfeld’s global test to test the proportional hazards assumption in the Cox proportional hazards model: An application to a clinical study’ accepted for publication by The Journal of the National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka. .Volume 37, Issue 1, pages 41-51.
Perera, H.L.C. and Sooriyarachchi, M.R. ‘Fitting correlation adjusted generalized linear models to clustered dengue data measured over time’ Sri Lankan Journal of Applied Statistics, Vol. 9 (Special Issue), 159-175, 2008
N.K.P.S. Jayawardana and M.R. Sooriyarachchi ‘Prognostic models with competing risks : Methods and Application to Prostate Cancer data’ Sri Lankan Journal of Applied Statistics (2009). Volume 10 pages 43-64
K. Nadarajah and M.R. Sooriyarachchi ‘A monte-carlo Simulation study of the properties of Residual Maximum Likelihood (REML) estimators for the linear Gaussian mixed model’ Sri Lankan Journal of Applied Statistics (2009). Volume 10 pages 119-136
A.A. Sunethra and M.R. Sooriyarachchi ‘Variance-Corrected proportional Harzards models for the analysis of multiple failures in personal computers’ Quality and Reliability Engineering International 27 : 85-97, 2011
S.D. Viswakula and M.R. Sooriyarachchi ‘Diagnostics for matched case control studies : SAS macro for Proc Logistic’ Journal of National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka 39(1) : 13-23, 2011.
Siyasinghe, N., Sooriyarachchi, M.R. ‘Guidelines for calculating sample size in 2x2 Crossover Trials : A simulation study’. Journal of National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka 39(1) : 77-89, 2011
Sooriyarachchi, M.R., Jayatillake, R.V., Ranganath, H., Eddleston , M. ‘The use of mid-trial reviews for design modifications in small scale Clinical Trials’. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 31(6) : 579-586, 2010.
Jayatillake, R.V., Sooriyarachchi, M.R. , Senarathna, D.L.P. Adjusting for a cluster effect in the Logistic Regression Model : An illustration of theory and its application. Accepted by the Journal of the National Science Association of Sri Lanka

Books Published

Sooriyarachchi M.R. and Lea N. 'Estimating probable rainfall for irrigation scheduling in the tropics' Technical Report OD/TN 49 Hydraulics Research Wallingford, U.K. , August 1990. Results of this report were used in irrigation models in Sri Lanka (Hakwatuna Oya) and Thailand (Kaiesaro).
Co-author, A Statistics book titled, 'Moolika Sankyanaya (Basic Statistics)' for the General Certificate Examination (Advanced level) and University first year students, 1996.
Sri Lanka’s contributor to ‘Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences’ published by Springer-Verlag, 2011 and Edited by Prof. Miodag Lovric.

Citations(searched from Scopus, the Science Citation Index and Google Scholar - International Databases)

Over 90 citations of papers in International Journals

Research Supervision

Special Degree Undergraduate Level Projects

Have supervised over 35 research projects in all. In the past 5 years, these projects have resulted in 7 full papers in International journals, 5 full papers in local journals, 2 full papers in proceedings of conferences, 3 abstracts at International conferences and 9 abstracts at National conferences. This has resulted in 3 students winning the SLAAS best project award at a National level and I Myself winning two Conference Scientist awards and a student wining a Conference Scientist award at International level.

Other

Collaborative Research with Hydraulics Research, Wallingford, U.K., 1989.
Advisor, South Asian Clinical Toxicology Collaboration, 2006-2007
Visiting Research Fellow, University of Reading, UK, from 2005-2007 (3 Years)
Advisor, Link Herbal Products (Pvt.) Ltd. 2010 todate.