Prof. Kumar David passes away

Left intellectual, activist, writer and political commentator Prof.Kumar David, has passed away at the age of 83 in Los Angeles.

He was a prominent activist since his younger days and a member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party. Educated at S. Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia he graduated from the University of Ceylon in Electrical Engineering, and had a long academic career in many institutions. He also wrote extensively to newspapers and other publications on politics and subjects of interest.

He graduated with First Class Honours in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ceylon in 1963. He was a Commonwealth Scholar for three years (1966-1969) at the Imperial College of Science & Technology, University of London, completing his PhD and DIC in 1969.

He is a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and the USA, receiving citations for his contributions to the restructuring of the electricity supply industry and transmission development, which has been his main research area in recent decades. In Sri Lanka, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Ceylon Electricity Board when he was 29. He has been an industry consultant in Asian and African countries. He has held visiting professorships and research positions in universities in the US and Sweden.

He taught at Peradeniya for over ten years until 1980, in Zimbabwe for three years (1980-1983), and from 1983 for over 25 years in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he retired as Dean, Faculty of Engineering. He was the first non-European to become Dean of Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic, which is a centre of excellence for students from China and other neighbouring countries. Kumar David has taught generations of students in Sri Lanka, Africa and many Asian countries to obtain their undergraduate and graduate degrees in Engineering.

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