PROFESSOR CHANDRA WICKRAMASINGHE
Sri Lankan-British astronomer, astrobiologist, co-proponent with the late Sir Fred Hoyle of the theory of cometary panspermia. Chandra is a pioneer of the new science of astrobiology, and is a prolific writer both of technical scientific papers as well as popular expositions of his ideas. His total count of technical journal papers exceeds 400, and some 60 of these have appeared in the journal Nature.
Chandra was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1939, and received his early education at Royal College, Colombo and the University of Ceylon. In 1961 he went to Cambridge, UK, where he began his life-long collaboration with Sir Fred Hoyle.Recent books include: Cosmic Genetic Evolution (Academic Press), Diseases from Outer Space, A Journey with Fred Hoyle, The Search for Our Cosmic Ancestry, Where did we come from? (World Scientific Publishing Singapore), and Our Cosmic Ancestry in the Stars (Inner Traditions USA).
He was a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge from 1963-1973, Professor at University College Cardiff and Cardiff University from 1973-2011. Currently he is an Honorary Professor at the University of Buckingham UK, and also at the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, the Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Sri Lanka, and an Adjunct Professor at the National Institute of Fundamental Studies, Sri Lanka