The first woman in Sri Lanka
to stand watch in the engine room — still charting new courses.

A career that began below deck and now shapes policy above it.

Anna trained as an engine cadet on container ships with Rickmers Reederei, then spent years in Sri Lankan shipyards — Colombo Dockyard, Beruwela, Mutwal — supervising dry-docking, quality control and repair of vessels valued in the millions of rupees, at a time when almost no women held those positions.

That first-hand experience of the industry's culture is now the foundation of her doctoral research at the University of Kelaniya, which examines men's perspectives on women's participation in seafaring careers — work she has carried to conferences on four continents, into journal publications, and into the classrooms of the next generation of engineers and officers.