U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants Vermont

March 30, 2022

USCRI Vermont would like to welcome Sonali Samarasinghe as our new Coordinator of Interpretation and Translation Services. Sonali is an award-winning journalist, human rights activist, lawyer, and former diplomat. A native of Sri Lanka, Sonali practiced law there for many years and worked as a journalist focusing on human rights, including government corruption and women’s issues. Sonali has served as editor-in-chief of The Morning Leader, a national weekly newspaper, and as columnist for The Sunday Leader. In the United States, she has been an Edward R. Murrow Fellow, an International Journalist in Residence at the Graduate School of Journalism, City University of New York, a Neiman Fellow of Journalism at Harvard University and a Writer in Residence at the Ithaca City of Asylum. Sonali has been a lecturer at Ithaca College and a visiting scholar at Cornell University. Most recently, she served as Minister in the Sri Lankan mission to the United Nations, where she handled legal, political, and media affairs.

Sonali has a Master’s degree in International Affairs from the Australian National University and a Law Degree from the University of London. In her spare time, she enjoys theater and the performing arts, reading, writing, and recently forayed into the world of children's literature and illustration, publishing her first children's book in Sri Lanka.

“I’m excited to join USCRI to work with a dedicated and empathetic team and privileged to be afforded the opportunity to engage with people of diverse cultures, preferences, and ideologies. I believe it is a human right to be treated with dignity and respect while able to understand the world around us, and I’m excited to coordinate interpretation and translation services at USCRI to help achieve that with our clients."