Dr. Mahendra Prinath Dias (52) was recently appointed as the new IAEA/RCA Coordinator and will be at the Vienna office in the good part of June 2003. Before the appointment, Dr. Dias was the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Atomic Energy Authority for almost 10 good years.

Dr. Dias' academic background is nuclear engineering. He completed his BSc Degree at the University of Sri Lanka. He further studied at Texas A&M University in nuclear engineering and earned Ph D Degree. Dr. Dias has been also the Professor at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka in electrical engineering since 1989. He was also a visiting professor in nuclear engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.