Dr Saman Pathirana is a medical doctor, public health specialist (Consultant in Community Medicine), and medical administrator at the Ministry of Health Sri Lanka. He received his basic medical degree MBBS from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and received his Postgraduate Diploma in Reproductive Health, Master of Science in Community Medicine, and Doctor of Science in Community Medicine from the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. He is currently attached to school of Psychology and public health, La Trobe University, Australia as an Adjunct Research Fellow and to the Non-Communicable Diseases and Implementation Science laboratory at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne as a Visiting Academic.

Dr Pathirana's research interests are in public health especially prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, implementation science, mhealth, epidemiology, and maternal and child health. He has more than 22 years of working experience as a clinician and program leader in public health programs at national, provincial, district, and divisional levels.

He has more than three years of teaching experience, in teaching public health to medical undergraduates at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya and Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo.