A shining star in nuclear medicine
Her carefree childhood was a whirl of playing outdoors, earnest academic and political discussions with adults with wide and varied interests who visited her parents’ home on Thurstan Road, Colombo, reading anything and everything that she could lay her hands on, with a high priority for education but no pressure to excel.
Dr. Yuni Dewaraja, however, has excelled and as this Medical Physicist delivers the prestigious 2025 Hal Anger Lectureship on ‘Molecular Vision, Targeted Precision’ at the SNMMI Annual Meeting tomorrow (June 23) in far-away New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America (USA), she brings pride and honour to the land of her birth, Sri Lanka.
At home with her family and pet dog
In an email interview, Dr. Dewaraja, the daughter of revered historian, Dr. Lorna Dewaraja and well-known National Archivist Amarawansa Dewaraja, recalls how many of her mother’s students (some even stayed at their home) and colleagues would visit their home as they lived only a few minutes away from the Colombo University where her mother taught history.
The children were often included in academic and political discussions with the grown-ups, she says, going back into her childhood where they were “surrounded” by books, newspapers and magazines. They were showered with books by Enid Blyton and ‘Hardy Boys’ written under the pen-name of Franklin W. Dixon, while attending cultural events, seeing Sinhala and English movies and plays and visiting a lot of museums and historical sites during school vacations.
Dr. Yuni Dewaraja
Even though science was not a frequent topic at home, Dr. Dewaraja relives the “excitement” over the first moon landing, with her father explaining what was relayed over the radio as there was no TV at that time.
Schooling was at Ladies’ College and it was here that Dr. Dewaraja became enamoured by science and mathematics. “I enjoyed the praise and attention the teachers showered on me when I answered a science question or got the right answer to a challenging math problem. I must admit I was not the most serious student and was quite mischievous in my younger days. However, I realized early on that doing well in academics was one way to avoid getting into trouble with the teachers.”
Blissfully ignorant about some of the misconceptions about girls and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects, due to the encouragement by her teachers, her choice was physics, chemistry and mathematics for the Advanced Level (AL).
Dr. Dewaraja keeps reiterating that though her parents gave equal importance to the education of her two brothers and sister (former Foreign Secretary Aruni Wijewardene), there was no pressure to go into a particular profession. They were equally encouraging of her sister’s interest in studying languages as hers in engineering.
After ALs, their parents sent her sister and her to the University of Western Australia as they had a friend who was a professor there. After Dr. Dewaraja’s undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering, she returned to
Sri Lanka in 1986 and worked at the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA) laboratory located in the Colombo University for two years, “really enjoying” her time there. Her fascination with nuclear technology and all its potential for peaceful use was sparked at the AEA. “I was eager to learn more and came to the USA for graduate studies, pursuing my PhD (doctorate) in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Michigan in 1994 specialising in radiation detection and measurement.”
Thereafter, Dr. Dewaraja joined the Department of Radiology (Division of Nuclear Medicine) at the University of Michigan Medical School as she elaborates that her field is generally known as Medical Physics.
“Medical Physics is a relatively new health profession that is becoming very popular globally. Medical physicists are trained in the concepts and techniques of applying physics in medicine, especially in radiation oncology (cancer), nuclear medicine and radiation protection. Nuclear medicine uses radioactive material (radiopharmaceuticals), injected into the body, to diagnose and treat diseases such as cancer,” she says.
Happy days at Ladies’ College: Yuni (left) with friends
Looking at the difference between nuclear medicine and ‘external beam radiotherapy’, she spells out that in the latter, radiation originates outside the body. “My research is in Radiation Dosimetry, which is the measurement and calculation of the ionizing radiation that is absorbed by different tissue in the human body. As radiation not only kills the cancerous cells but can also damage healthy tissue, it is very important to optimize the treatment considering dosimetry of both tumour and healthy organs.”
In her personal life, it was a love affair during her doctoral studies that blossomed into a family of five. She had met husband Yuji, originally from Japan, in graduate school when they were both pursuing their PhD degrees in Nuclear Engineering. He had worked for many years as a scientist at Ford Motor Company and is now in academia on Electric Vehicle Technology.
The couple have three children pursuing widely different interests. Ashwin the oldest is finishing his law degree at Harvard University after previously working for five years as a software engineer. Second son Naveen is an officer in the US navy currently stationed in Hawaii, having graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis. The youngest, daughter Anisha, who recently graduated from Northwestern University, is working in the Boston area as a management consultant.
On balancing home life and work, Dr. Dewaraja says, “it was not easy” when the children were young, especially because neither her husband nor herself had any family nearby. “This is very different from my experiences as a child growing up in Sri Lanka. When my mother left for England to pursue her PhD my sister and I, 4 to 6 years old, stayed behind with my aunt and her family (the Chandrasomas) in Colombo. When we were older, and my parents had to travel out of the country for their work, my father’s brother would come from Ratnapura to live with us and my aunts visited us often.”
As Dr. Dewaraja makes a major difference worldwide in the lives of people battling cancer, transforming precision care and patient outcomes, Sri Lanka can be proud of this shining star in nuclear medicine.
Searching for an ideal partner? Find your soul mate on Hitad.lk, Sri Lanka's favourite marriage proposals page. With Hitad.lk matrimonial advertisements you have access to thousands of ads from potential suitors who are looking for someone just like you.