W&L Visiting Math Professor Receives $10,000 Grant from Second Nature Kumudu Gamage will use the funds for professional development and summer research.

By Brian Laubscher
January 4, 2024

Kumudu Gamage, visiting assistant professor of mathematics at Washington and Lee University, has been selected to receive a $10,000 grant from Second Nature, an organization dedicated to accelerating climate action in and through higher education.

Gamage will use the funds to attend workshop training for the Energy Expansion Research Cohort and to facilitate the participation of W&L students in Summer Research Scholars programming.

“This funding will significantly improve my research efforts and enable me to establish valuable connections within the professional community,” said Gamage. “I am genuinely grateful for the continuous support from W&L and look forward to representing our institution in the Energy Expansion Research Cohort.”

Gamage and colleagues from 11 other institutions will participate in three capacity-building training workshops held between January and April 2024. The first workshop features a discussion with a federal agency representative and provides direct learning and best practices for navigating the grant processes for specific agencies. The second is a discussion with an institutional grant specialist/writer that includes workshops on writing support and assistance, and guidance on the application process. The third workshop features a discussion with a faculty member engaged in interdisciplinary work and research. This session provides examples of successful interdisciplinary collaboration across departments and institutions.

Gamage and David Harbor, professor of earth and environmental geoscience, are mentoring Wonjun Jo ’26 and Jeem Abid ’26 through the Summer Research Scholars program. During the summer of 2023, they installed equipment at the W&L farm to collect data on ground temperature, moisture content and rainfall. The thermal properties they identified will be utilized in the upcoming summer, and the ongoing data collection will contribute to ground heat exchanger modeling.

Gamage joined the faculty as a visiting assistant professor at the start of the 2022-23 academic year. She holds a Bachelor of Science in mathematics (Honors) from the University of Kelaniya (Sri Lanka) and a pair of Master of Science degrees, one in sustainable environment and energy systems from Middle East Technical University (Turkey) and another in mathematics from Old Dominion University. She also earned a Ph.D. in computational applied mathematics from Old Dominion.

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