Asoka Weerasinghe was former Deputy High Commissioner

High Commissioner

High Commissioner is the title of various high-ranking, special executive positions held by a commission of appointment.The English term is also used to render various equivalent titles in other languages.-Bilateral diplomacy:...

 for Sri Lanka in Canada.

He is also well known Sri Lankan born activist in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and was educated at Nalanda College Colombo, Sri Lanka.

He is an award winning poet and his poetry has been published in many literary magazines in the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Germany and many countries.

Few of the many poetry awards he won are Welsh University Eisteddfod Poetry Award, Sri Lanka State Literary Award (1995 for My Roots), Manifold Award and City of Ottawa’s Appreciation Award for Arts and Culture in 2003.

His poem "Trail of Mankind" was adopted as the storyline for Canada’s National Museum of Man’s Orientation Hall in Ottawa 1972.

Books written by him were shortlisted for the Archibald Lampman

Archibald Lampman

Archibald Lampman, was a Canadian poet. "He has been described as 'the Canadian Keats;' and he is perhaps the most outstanding exponent of the Canadian school of nature poets." The Canadian Encyclopedia says that he is "generally considered the finest of Canada's late 19th-century poets in...

 and Lampman-Scott Award as well.

By profession he is a Geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

, Paleontology

Paleontology

Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...

 and Museology

Museology

Museology is the diachronic study of museums and how they have established and developed in their role as an educational mechanism under social and political pressures.-Overview:...

 and also one time Curator

Curator

A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...

of the Ottawa Museum in Canada.