Professor WM Tilakaratne is a globally recognized expert in the field of Oral Pathology and Medicine with over three decades of local, regional and international experience in academia, encompassing research, teaching and executive level administration. In these positions he has served as a senior administrative executive, and consultant/advisor to various national and international bodies.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in Dental Surgery from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, in 1991, immediately followed with specialization, earning a master’s degree (MS Dental Surgery), from the University of Colombo, and a general diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FDSRCS). Subsequently, in London, UK, he had the unique opportunity for advanced training and specialization in Oral Pathology, which led to DipRCPath, MRCPath and FRCPath from the Royal College of Pathologists, United Kingdom, and thereafter to serve as a consultant in oral pathology for the last three decades. He is the first dental surgeon from Sri Lanka to gain such distinction.  Afterwards, he read for his PhD degree and completed it at the University of Niigata, Japan.

Since then, holding various academic positions in the United Kingdom and in Asia, mainly in resource-poor Sri Lanka, he has published over 190 peer reviewed journal-articles that are widely cited, and currently have a h-index of 48. For these accomplishments he was awarded many prestigious awards and listed in among the best 2% of world Scientists.Among these was the Award for the Best Researcher in Sri Lanka in Health Sciences encompassing the fields of Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Sciences in 2014, by the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Directors (CVCD) – the supreme national award for researchers in the country.  In addition, he was also awarded the Lifetime Health Research Award for the best researcher in Medicine and Dentistry, and the Research Award of His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka, over ten consecutive years. In 2017, Prof Tilakaratne was also honored with a prestigious fellowship award of the National Academy of Sciences in Sri Lanka. In recognition of his research, he has been invited to deliver numerous orations, keynote addresses and guest lectures in over 20 countries worldwide. Additionally, he serves in a large number of editorial boards of many international journals in different capacities, and a reviewer for over 40 journals. 

The pinnacle of his professional career was his election in 2016 to the Presidency of the International Association of Oral Pathologists, the body that represents all oral pathologists the world over. He served with distinction in this capacity, and continue to represent the specialty to this day through invited representations at various fora, including the World Health Organization, International agency for research in Cancer, International Collaboration for Cancer reporting and International consortium on Odontogenic tumours. This is a rare achievement for a person with an Asian background. 

Apart from his academic distinctions, his administrative achievements include the service as the Dean of the Faculty of Dental Sciences of the University of Peradeniya, number one ranked university in the country from 2015 to 2018. Together with his executive team, he was able to spearhead a renaissance of the institute during this period and uplift its status to the foremost “A” grade as per the national appraisal of educational institutes in Sri Lanka. As the Dean was responsible for the management of the Dental Teaching Hospital as the CEO. Concurrently, he served as a member of numerous national executive boards, including the Sri Lanka Medical Council, the Standing Committee of the University Grants Commission, the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, the National Science Foundation, and the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol, thus gaining in depth administrative experience. In addition, he has gained ample experience as an evaluator in accreditation of numerous Dental Faculties in Asia. He was an expert editor for the Head and Neck Tumour Classification for the World Health Organization, and the International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC). He was an expert contributor for the Oral cancer prevention handbook by IARC. He has also contributed as an expert for the International Collaboration of Cancer Reporting (ICCR), which updates cancer databases globally. 

In terms of international academic expertise, He has worked as Professor of Oral Pathology in several universities including the Queen Mary University of London, Lecturer at the University of Birmingham and King’s College, London, and Senior Professor of Oral Pathology at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, and currently at the Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. In addition, he serves as a visiting professor/adjunct/honorary at several universities in UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and India. These appointments provided him not only the opportunity to observe the dental curricula across a range of universities but also to contribute to curriculum development, particularly in Sri Lanka where he introduced a novel module-based undergraduate curriculum, transforming the learning environment to fit international best practice during his deanship. Further, he has been in the forefront of postgraduate curricular development (especially in Oral Pathology) both in Sri Lanka and several other jurisdictions.  As an external examiner and evaluator, he also had the privilege of working for the Royal College of Surgeons of England, as well as various universities in India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

His contribution in the dissemination of knowledge through textbooks has been significant over the last two decades. As can be gleaned from his bio-data, he has published several textbooks, and numerous chapters in internationally reputed tomes, and played a major role in editing the WHO Classification on Head and Neck Tumours 2022 and the IARC/WHO handbook on Oral Cancer prevention, widely considered as the key reference texts on Head and Neck diseases and oral cancer.