Dr Udara de Silva officially assumed duties as the Head of the Department of Modern Languages, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, on 12 May 2026 at the Department premises.

Dr Udara de Silva is a Senior Lecturer in Japanese (Grade I) at the Department of Modern Languages, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, where she has been a member of staff since 2004. Her work covers Japanese language teaching, sociolinguistics research, and curriculum development.

She holds a PhD in Language and Society from Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan, where she studied on a Monbukagakusho (MEXT) Government Scholarship. Her doctoral research looked at motivation of Sri Lankan university students to learn Japanese language, drawing on the Second Language Motivational Self System framework. Her MA thesis from the same university received the Tsukada Memorial Award for the Best Master's Thesis by a Foreign Student. She also holds an MA in Linguistics from the University of Kelaniya and a BA with First Class Honours from the same institution.

Dr de Silva's research sits at the intersection of sociolinguistics, second language acquisition, and identity, with a particular focus on language motivation through the lens of Dörnyei's L2 Motivational Self System. Her scholarly interests also extend to translation studies and folklore studies. She has published in peer-reviewed journals, contributed to academic volumes, and presented at conferences both locally and internationally. Her current scholarly interest extends to minority heritage language revitalization in Sri Lanka, exploring how motivational self-systems can enhance the lived linguistic experiences of endangered language communities such as Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole and Vedda.

Her work has appeared in journals including the Vidyodaya Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sri Jayawardenepura; the Journal of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Ruhuna; Gensha, Hitotsubashi Nihongokyoiku Kenkyu, Hitotsubashi University, Japan as well as in volumes on Sri Lanka–Japan relations. She is a co-author of the prescribed Japanese language textbook for the GCE Advanced Level Examination and “Ekamat Eka Kāleka Japan Ratē”: A collection of Japanese folktales translated into Sinhala.

Alongside her teaching and research, Dr de Silva has held a range of administrative positions at the University of Kelaniya, including Director of the Research Centre of the Faculty of Humanities (2019–2021); Member of the University Research Council (2019–2021); Faculty Coordinator of the Staff Development Unit, Faculty of Humanities (2023–2024); Chief Coordinator of the International Conference on the Humanities (ICH) 2018/19 and 2020/21; Coordinator of the Undergraduate Research Symposium (HUG) 2018, Faculty of Humanities; and Member of the Editorial Boards of the Kalyani Journal and the Journal of Multidisciplinary and Translational Research of the University of Kelaniya.

Dr de Silva has contributed to Japanese language education at the national level, working with the Department of Examinations, the National Institute of Education, the Ministry of Education, and the Department of Technical Education and Training. She has been involved in developing Japanese language curricula at several universities and served as Chairperson of the Ministry of Education panel for recruiting foreign language teachers to national schools.

Internationally, she took part in the Erasmus+ Staff Training Mobility Programme at the University of Rouen Normandy, France in 2023 and has spent time in Japan for research and training on a number of occasions. She presented at the Japanese Folktale Conference 2025 at Shizuoka University of Arts and Culture, Japan. She is a member of Association of Japanese Language Overseas, Folktales Association of Japan, Japanese Graduates Alumni Association of Sri Lanka (JaGAAS) and has been the President of Japanese Language Teachers' Association of Sri Lanka in 2009.