Professor Ranjit de Silva has been appointed to the World Racket Sport Science Committee after the international federations of badminton, tennis and table tennis joined hands to organize a World Congress of Racket Sport Science in Bangkok, Thailand on May 25 and 26.
Professor Ranjit de Silva was invited to attend as a member of the Scientific Committee which reviewed the research submissions and discussions at the Congress.
Professor de Silva, a former national badminton singles champion of Sri Lanka, is an old boy of St Joseph’s College, Colombo and obtained his doctorate from the Cambridge University of the UK.
He was Founder Professor of Materials Engineering at the Moratuwa University and Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore.
Professor de Silva said that though outstanding research into sports had been done in many scientific fields, the greatest impact in sports has been by the application of developments in his field of materials engineering.
“This was seen, for example, by the introduction of the deflecting fibre glass pole in the pole vault, the use of specialist materials in golf clubs and the huge transformation in the game of badminton with the use of fibre reinforced composite materials in rackets”, said Prof Ranjith de Silva.