WM Tilakaratne BDS, MS, FDSRCS, FRCPath, PhD is currently the Professor of Oral Pathology and Senior Consultant attached to the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Clinical Sciences and Associate Dean Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya. He has held many academic and professional positions in the past three and half decades including Professor of Oral Pathology at the Queen Mary University of London and visiting Professor to universities in many countries around the world including University of Western Australia, University of Otago New Zealand, University of Chulalongkorn Thailand, Ramachandra, Saveetha and Manipal universities in India, Airlangga University Indonesia and Queen Mary UK. He is the former Dean, Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya Sri Lanka, and past president of the International Association of Oral Pathologists. He is a researcher of high repute and listed in the best 2% of world Scientists by Stanford University and the first Dentist practising in Sri Lanka to achieve that. He was the recipient of the CVCD award for best researcher in Medical, Dental and Veterinary Sciences in Sri Lanka and the recipient of the Presidential research award for many years. His main research areas are oral cancer, oral potentially malignant disorders and Odontogenic tumours. His research group is responsible for unfolding aetiology and pathogenesis of Oral submucous fibrosis, main precursor lesion for Oral cancer. He is the first Dental Surgeon to be awarded the fellow of National academy of Science Sri Lanka. He has published over 185 papers with an H-index of 47 and cited heavily by researchers in high impact journals (8500 citations in Google scholar and 3475 in Web of Science). He has written two internationally renowned textbooks, and contributed to 44 chapters in internationally recognized books. He is an Editor for the latest WHO classification on Head and neck tumours, and IARC (International Agency for Research in Cancer) handbook on Oral cancer prevention. In addition, he serves in different capacities in numerous International Journals. He is a highly sought-after speaker in international Scientific conferences around the globe and delivered keynote lectures, Orations and invited/plenary lectures in more than twenty countries.
