Daphne Attygalle

Daphne Kanagaratne^[1] was born in 1922.^[2] She was educated at St. Bridget's Convent, Colombo, and she was later president of their Past Pupils' Association from 1975 to 1977.^[3]

In 1970, Attygalle began working as a Professor of Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians after spending some time in England for postgraduate work.^[2][4] She became an Emeritus Professor at the University of Colombo on 10 September 1987.^[5]

Attygalle was dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1982 until 1986;^[6] she was the first woman to serve as a dean at a Sri Lankan university.^[7] She declined an offer to serve as vice-chancellor of the University of Colombo (had she accepted she would have been the first woman to be vice-chancellor of a Sri Lankan university),^[8] though she would later serve as acting vice-chancellor of the University of Colombo, serving until her death.^[1]

Attygalle was the first chair of the Board of Study in Pathology, and she was later re-elected after her first term ended in 1983.^[9] She worked as an external examiner at the University of Malaya Faculty of Dentistry.^[10]

As an academic, Attygalle's field of work was pathology.^[11] She was one of the fifty-three founding fellows of the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka.^[12] She was awarded Deshabandu in the 1986 Sri Lankan national honours.^[13]

Attygalle married Don Jinadasa Attygalle, senior physician of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka.^[1] She died in 1989.^[1]

The Faculty of Medicine awards a Professor Daphne Attygalle Medal for Pathology to its students.^[14]