2018 Civil Engineering Alumnus of the Year: Dr Dasarath (Jaya) Jayasuriya

^{Jaya Jayasuriya}

The winner of the 2018 Monash Department of Civil Engineering Alumnus of the Year Award is Dr Dasarath (Jaya) Jayasuriya.

Jaya graduated from Monash University with a PhD degree in 1988 in the field of Water Resources Engineering. The title of his thesis was “Simulation of runoff from urban watersheds to derive improved runoff coefficients”.

Jaya is currently the General Manager of Public Safety at the Bureau of Meteorology, Australia’s national weather, climate and water agency. His portfolio covers all natural disasters except earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Jaya is responsible for policy, forecasting and warning for natural hazards such as riverine flooding, tropical cyclones, bushfires, heatwaves and severe weather. Forecasting of emerging threats, such as thunderstorm asthma, also fall within his portfolio.

Following the completion of his PhD Jaya worked at Melbourne Water for 22 years, before joining the Bureau of Meteorology in 2009. During his time at Melbourne Water Jaya was responsible for the strategic planning of Melbourne’s water supply system, including management of over 150,000 ha of protected forested catchments supplying water to a city of 4 million plus people. Jaya also contributed to water resources management and water reform at the national, state and regional level, including extensive work with local government developing sustainable water strategies and water conservation measures.

From August 2011 to April 2013, Jaya was a member of the Bureau’s Executive team acting as the Deputy Director of its Climate and Water Division. In this role, Jaya was responsible for the Improving Water Information Program, a 10 year, $450 million Australian Government initiative to monitor, assess and forecast the availability, condition and use of Australia’s water resources.

Jaya is one of the six members of the Expert Group established by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) to advise the global community on Climate, Water and Food Security. He is also a member of the WMO Flood Forecasting Initiative Advisory Group and a member of the Advisory Board supporting the European Union funded ’EartH2Observe’ (E2O) initiative. Moreover, Jaya does work in Vietnam for the World Bank on disaster risk reduction and building early warning systems, and in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Samoa and Tonga on irrigation and disaster management.

He has also contributed expertise to organizational reform, including environmental water, operational flood forecasting and warning, drought management, disaster risk assessment and reduction, water resources allocations and optimization, and institutional governance.

Jaya has also made significant contributions to community over the last 25 years, particularly to the large Sri Lankan migrant community in Melbourne. These include being President of the Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka in Victoria. In this role he has provided the necessary leadership to support education for youth from disadvantaged families, as well as building capability and providing self-employment assistance to the rural unemployed in Sri Lanka. One example includes the desilting of reservoirs to increase water holding capacity, allowing small scale vegetable farmers to double their produce.