K.M. de Silva is Executive Director of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Kandy/Colombo, Sri Lanka, a post he has held since the establishment of the ICES in 1982.
Apart from his long association with the University of Ceylon (now the University of Peradeniya), Professor de Silva has held several distinguished positions including Smuts Visiting Fellow in Commonwealth Studies and Visiting Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, President, International Association of Historians of Asia and Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington.
Professor de Silva’s publications include Social Policy and Missionary Organisations in Ceylon, 1840–55 (1965), Managing Ethnic Tensions in Multiethnic Societies: Sri Lanka, 1880–1985 (1986), Regional Powers and Small State Security: India and Sri Lanka, 1977–1990 and Reaping the Whirlwind: Ethnic Conflict and Ethnic Politics in Sri Lanka (1998). He has been editor of Ethnic Studies Report, one of the editors of the International Journal of Group Rights and has been on the advisory board of The Round Table.
K.M. de Silva was selected as the Academic Prize Laureate (2002) of the 13th Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prizes. The Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prizes were established in 1990 by Fukuoka City, Japan, to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Asian scholarship and culture. Professor de Silva is the first Sri Lankan Fukuoka Laureate.