Nirmani Liyanage is a social researcher, urban planner, peace building & development practitioner, educator and an ethnographer. She is currently working at Search for Common Ground as the project manager of the Sri Lankan component of a global pilot project on urban peace and inclusive development through localized application of the collective impact approach. Prior to this, she worked at Centre for Poverty Analysis heading their research program on infrastructure and poverty. As an Ethnographer, Nirmani recently completed a 15 month live-in ethnographic exploration at an urban informal settlement of Colombo to better understand the life of the most marginalized groups of the city. Her ethnographic research covers a range of topics such as everyday city/space making, community mapping, urban poverty, housing, sustainable development and collaborative urban change. She teaches sociology and housing at City School of Architecture, Colombo. In 2016-17, Nirmani acted as a steering committee member of the Ministry of Housing which revised the National Housing Policy for Sri Lanka and is currently supporting the same ministry as a working committee member that looks at a practical solution for area development planning that fights land-grab and development-induced displacement. She has a Masters in urban and regional planning from Ball State University, USA