Speakers

RCCC 2025

Keynote Speakers

Robert Vautard is currently the co-chair of IPCC Working Group I on the physical science basis of climate change. He has dedicated his work to several environmental topics, including atmospheric pollution modeling and understanding climate change, particularly through the study of extreme climate events and regional climates. He is a research director at CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) and works at the Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute (IPSL), a major research institute in environmental sciences in France. He has published over 200 articles in leading scientific journals and has contributed to several IPCC reports. He has also participated in numerous European projects and coordinated several national and European projects.

Erika Coppola received the Laurea degree in Physics (1998) from the University of L’Aquila, and the PhD degree (2004) in Meteorology from the University of Reading, UK. From 2002 to 2006 she joined the CETEMPS centre of excellence of the University of L’Aquila as a post-doc. She is currently research scientist in ICTP, ESP section, which she joined in September 2006. Her PhD research involved passive remote sensing of the atmosphere from space-borne platforms, with a particular focus on precipitation.
She is working in regional climate modelling in particular she is leading the high resolution (convection permitting resolution) model development and coordinating the hydrological model research activity and development of CHyM hydrological model. In particular the coupling of the hydrological model with regional climate model (RegCM) for land-use impact studies and climate change impact on future water resources.
She contributed as a lead author to the IPCC AR6 WGI to coordinate the assessment of regional climate information across all continents and contribute to the development of an updated IPCC risk assessment framework. Her current research activity is focusing on the climate change impact on hazards at the regional scale by mean of regional climate models and hydroclimate models. She is interested in land-atmosphere interactions; monsoon climate; regional hydrological cycle; climate extremes; climate variability and change; flood risk estimation.

Leel Randeni is a experienced environmental management professional with over two decades of experience in climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable development. He currently serves as the Director (Climate Change) at the Ministry of Environment, Sri Lanka, where he has been instrumental in shaping sustainability policies since March 2023. Prior to this, he held the position of Assistant Director (Special Projects) at the Ministry, where he focused on environmental planning and economics.
Leel has played a key role in several initiatives, including the Green-smart Village Programme and the Teachers Training Programme on the identification and promotion of green jobs and enterprises. His extensive career began at the Biodiversity Secretariat, where he served for 19 years and contributed to projects like the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and the Pricing the Biodiversity of the Island Project.
Leel holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Economics from the Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Sociology from the University of Colombo. He is also a graduate in Agriculture (Special) from the University of Peradeniya, where he was the President of the Postgraduate Agriculture Student Association.
Leel’s expertise in climate change adaptation, policy development, and biodiversity conservation has made him a key figure in Sri Lanka’s efforts to address environmental challenges.

Plenary Speaker

Dr. Ranjit Galappatti was a Member of the first Board of Directors of LHI from 1985, and served as a visiting General Manager (Engineering). In 1987 he resigned his professorship at the University of Peradeniya to work full time at LHI. He joined Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI) in 1989 to work on a Danida funded project to develop River Modelling in the Bangladesh.. He was instrumental in creating the Surface Water Modelling Centre, which later became the Institute of Water Modelling (IWM).
He returned to LHI in 1994 and retired as in 2003 after 3 years as Managing Director. He later worked as consultant for various international agencies and consulting companies from 2004 to 2009 in in several Asian countries including India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Afghanistan and the Lower Mekong Basin countries. Recently he led a team of experts from Denmark, the Netherlands, USA and Bangladesh carrying out a World Bank funded research study of the long term evolution of the Bangladesh Delta.
Dr. Galappatti is a Graduate of University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, and has received his doctorate from the University of Cambridge in the UK. He taught in Peradeniya from 1974 to 1987 with a brief period at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Dr. Keiko Udo is a professor of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tohoku University. Her recent research interests include assessing the impact of climatic and socioeconomic changes, especially on coastal areas, and proposing effective adaptation strategies. She has 25 years of research experience in coastal engineering issues in Japan, Thailand, the Netherlands, Egypt, China, and other areas. She has worked on national climate change impact and adaptation projects in Japan, Thailand, Egypt, and China.

The International Institute of Knowledge Management
Tel: +94 117 992 022
Hotline: +94 765 733 737
email: isanka.gamage@tiikmedu.com
website: www.tiikm.com

RCCC 2025

Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Robert Vautard

Erika Coppola

Leel Randeni

Plenary Speaker

Dr. Ranjit Galappatti

Prof. Keiko Udo

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