birth_place nationality article_title name occupation
sri lanka canadian elagu v. elaguppillai
 elagu v. elaguppillai businessman , nuclear scientist
elagu v. elaguppillai

dr. elagu v. elaguppillai is a prominent canadian of sri lankan tamil descent , a businessman , nuclear scientist , university professor , medical researcher , municipal politician and a community services volunteer for over 35 years .
dr. elaguppillai was born in sri lanka and had his high school education in northern sri lanka .
he obtained his b.sc .
degree with a first class honours from the university of ceylon , colombo , and became the recipient of the gold medal for his best performance in the entire science faculty for the year 1964 .
subsequently , he was awarded the canadian commonwealth scholarship to pursue his higher studies in the department of physics , university of toronto , which brought him to canada in september 1967 .
he obtained his m.sc .
and ph.d. degrees in nuclear physics from the department of physics , university of toronto in 1968 and 1970 respectively .
after obtaining his ph. d , he became a tenured professor in physics at the university of penang , malaysia in 1970 , and university of zambia in 1972 and university of toronto in 1974 , authored several research publications .
he joined the carleton university in 1992 , where he developed a graduate course -lrb- 75.528 -rrb- in radiation protection , and has been the instructor for the course since then .
dr. elaguppillai joined the canadian nuclear safety commission -lrb- cnsc -rrb- as a senior scientific advisor and served there in several capacities until his retirement in 1997 .
during this period , he also served as a canadian expert at the united nations atomic energy agency as member of the united nations scientific committee on the effects of atomic radiation -lrb- unscear -rrb- from 1992-1996 .
he also served on the expert panel of the international atomic energy agency -lrb- iaea -rrb- on `` nuclear science teaching in high schools and universities '' .
in july 1997 professor elaguppillai joined the institute for research on environment and economy -lrb- iree -rrb- , of ottawa as a scientific advisor .
in the same year , he founded the international center for low dose radiation research after securing millions of dollars of research funding from nuclear agencies in usa , france , japan and germany , and became its associate director , directing interdisciplinary research on the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation .
in 1998 , he also started a bio-pharmaceutical start up company , innopharm inc. , in markham and became its founding president and chief operating officer ; the company was later sold to investors in 2004 .
he also co-founded the academy of applied pharmaceutical sciences , a post graduate pharmaceutical college in toronto .
in 2001 he also became the chairman of the editorial board advisory board of a markham based pharmaceutical canada magazine .
dr. elaguppillai authored several research papers , scientific reports and analyses , and text books , and served in a number of national and international committees .
dr. elaguppillai has also engaged in municipal politics of the city of markham , and unsuccessfully ran as a candidate for regional councillor , and secured 16 , 246 votes .
he serves in a number of community organizations , notably , markham arts council , co-chair of taste of asia - annual cultural festival in markham and many others .
as a coordinator of a markham based tsunami relief program he provided extensive support towards relief and rehabilitation of the tsunami victims .
