The bridging ligand…

Your preparation and motivation for graduate study, including the academic, work, and/or research experiences that prepare you for this graduate program (for example: coursework, employment, exhibitions, fieldwork, foreign language proficiency, independent study, internships, laboratory activities, presentations, publications, studio projects, teaching, and travel or study abroad) and motivation or passion for graduate study. Your research interests, disciplinary subfields, area/s of specialization, and professional objectives. Your fit with the graduate program at Maryland, including how your preparation, experiences, and interests match the specific resources and characteristics of the graduate program at UMD. Please identify specific faculty within your desired graduate program with whom you would like to work and how their interests match your own. Any educational, familial, cultural, economic, and social experiences or challenges; community service and outreach activities; residency and citizenship; first-generation college status; hurdles you have overcome; opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how your life experiences will contribute to the social, intellectual, or cultural diversity within a campus community and your chosen field; leadership and/or community-building experiences; and how you might serve educationally underrepresented and underserved segments of society with your graduate education

My father has always been complaining about the escalating cost of electricity. He continuously replaces the lights of our house with new power-saving bulbs to cut down bills. There have always been strict rules on the use of electrical devices at home. From an early age, this fueled my urge to explore cost-effective energy sources. The energy crisis particularly in my home country of Sri Lanka is serious, with an annual 6-7% increase in the electricity demand, leading to frequent power cuts. My vision is to find economically viable solutions for this growing global energy crisis, which is my motivation to obtain a Ph.D.

During my undergraduate years, I was addicted to reading supplementary textbooks, and scientific journals. I learnt chemistry principles associating them with practical scenarios. My passion for chemistry is evident in my GPA which ranked 2nd in 26 students. My undergraduate research project was a study of the bioactivity and mercury content in an Ayurvedic drug formulation used for rheumatism. Through this project, I accumulated valuable research skills such as literature surveying, experimental designing, and statistical analysis, skills which I believe are essential segments of graduate studies. Moreover, it...

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