Ganesha Kariyawasam

What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned?

Listening is the key to recognizing individual team members’ differences. Individual personalities and working habits need to be recognized and effectively communicated to the team to help everyone work together to achieve goals.

What do you consider to be your most important career achievement or milestone?

Completing my Doctoral candidacy.

What do you aspire to accomplish in your career and why? What obstacles will you overcome?

I want to inspire people. I want to be a scientist who can effectively communicate my journey and findings to those who are not from a similar background.

Describe an amazing opportunity in your STEM career.

A TED talk that is undestandable to the scientific community as well as to the general public.

How was AWIS helped you professionally and/or personally?

I’m still new to the experience from AWIS. I’m looking forward to participating in opportunities in the future.

What is your favorite word? (only one word)

Neat.

How do you define it?

Being organized and transparent throughout everything I do in my career and day-to-day routine.

How has this word influenced or inspired your career?

Being organized is the key to being able recognize what I need to improve or what is the missing piece of my investigation. My PhD life and my research approach made more sense once I started putting effort to being more organized.

How does AWIS impact your career journey?

This is a great venture to network and find opportunities around the world to achieve my goals.

What are you currently reading or listening to?

I set aside some time from my physical work to read a paper a day that’s relevant to my work. I listen to several podcasts on general topics such as supernatural therories and lifestyle journals.

What do you consider the best professional or personal advice you’ve ever received?

Always stay discrete about some of your personal goals until you attain them.

Ganesha Kariyawasam is a fourth year PhD candidate in Molecular Biosciences at the University of South Florida. Her Sri Lankan family inspires her to be the best she can be. She pursued her primary to higher level education with focus in Biology and Molecular Biology in Sri Lanka. Ganesha initially wanted to become a travel journalist because she’s very passionate in meeting new people of different backgrounds and cultures, but was always curious and passionate about life sciences in general.