TOKYO -- Nikkei and the Columbia Journalism School in New York have awarded the annual Columbia-Nikkei Scholarship to Dimuthu Attanayake, a prize-winning independent journalist from Sri Lanka.
The 35-year-old will pursue a master's degree in data journalism and said she is "simply thrilled to be at the famed Pulitzer Hall, home to some of the industry's most prestigious awards, for the next year," referring to the journalism school's main building.
In July 2024, she was one of the winners of the Asian Development Bank Institute's Developing Asia Journalism Awards for an investigative story on how climate change has worsened gender-based violence among female farmers in Sri Lanka.
In the same year, Dimuthu participated in the United Nations' Reham Al-Farra Memorial Journalism Fellowship, while she is also the first Sri Lankan to receive a grant from the Pulitzer Center, which provides funding for in-depth reporting. She has written in Nikkei Asia about the concentration of plastic pellet spills in Asia and their environmental impact.
Dimuthu is a graduate of the University of London, where she earned a bachelor's degree in economics and finance.
Established in 2017, the Columbia-Nikkei Scholarship awards $100,000 to an outstanding journalism school candidate residing in Asia who has an interest in data or business reporting.
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