Professor Nilanthi de Silva is the Senior Professor of Parasitology in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. The main focus of her research is on soil-transmitted helminth infections and other neglected tropical diseases. She has published extensively in this field, in journals such as the Lancet, PLoS NTD, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, Annals of Tropical Medicine & Parasitology, Tropical Medicine & International Health and the Ceylon Medical Journal. She is an expert advisor on Neglected Tropical Diseases to the World Health Organization (WHO), serving both WHO Headquarters and the South East Asia Regional Office in many different capacities since 2000.

She has served in a similar advisory capacity to other international entities: Children Without Worms at the Task Force for Global Health in Atlanta, USA; the Partnership for Child Development at Imperial College London; and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative in Geneva, Switzerland.