Nishan Canagarajah

Sir Cedric Nishanthan Canagarajah (born 1966) is a Sri Lankan-British academic and the current president and vice-chancellor of the University of Leicester. He was previously one of the pro-vice-chancellors of the University of Bristol.

Early life Canagarajah was born in 1966 in Sri Lanka. His mother was a teacher. He was educated at St. John's College, Jaffna. He was the Head Prefect of the college in the year 1985 and also excelled in sports such as cricket, football, volleyball, and hockey. After school he joined Christ's College, Cambridge from where he received a BA honours degree in electronics and information sciences in 1989 and a Ph.D. in digital signal processing in 1993.

Career Canagarajah joined the University of Bristol in 1993 as a research assistant.

Canagarajah's research contributions in image segmentation and texture classification are internationally recognized and his research on audio signal processing led to an interactive exhibit, Virtual Drum, at the London Science Museum. He has led a number of successful international research partnerships and is currently theme leader for the joint £5M EPSRC/DST collaborative programme on next generation telecommunications systems and services, which includes a number of UK and Indian universities and industrial partners.

Canagarajah has served on a number of national and international panels on research funding, governance and postgraduate education. He acted as a technical consultant for several industrial partners including Sony, BT, BBC, Orange, Thales, Toshiba and the Metropolitan Police Service. He is part of the Universities UK advisory group to tackle racial harassment in higher education.

In January 2021, members of the Leicester University and College Union voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion of no confidence against Canagarajah, in response to a proposed mass lay-off of faculty members. In March 2021, students at Leicester also approved a vote of no confidence against Canagarajah, with 1010 votes for the proposal and only 82 opposed. In December 2025, another motion of no confidence in Canagarajah was passed by the Leicester University and College Union in response to more proposed job cuts, with 96.2% voting in favour and 3.8% opposed.

Personal life Canagarajah is married to Thabitha.