Meet Sri Lankan Researcher — Charitha Jayani Gamlath

What are you currently working on or worked on before?

I’m currently working towards understanding colloidal interactions in dairy systems. This includes establishing the kinetics of milk protein coagulation during the production of gelled dairy products such as cheeses and yogurts and functionalizing dairy streams to improve the production efficiency and nutritional value of gelled dairy products.

What encouraged you to pursue your research topic?

My love for food in general….On a serious note, although dairy is a billion-dollar industry, the processing techniques generally used to produce gelled dairy products are still conventional. This is due to the limited scientific understanding of colloidal interactions in dairy systems. Broadening this understanding enables developing highly nutritional, novel dairy products with higher production efficiencies and less waste generation.

What is the name of your current institute?

Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Melbourne

Where do you find your best inspiration for your work?

From my fellow research community. I always get inspired by the different approaches taken by researchers worldwide, to make food more nutritional and food processing more sustainable.

Can you share with us some of your publications?

My publications are available from the following link.

What’s one of your biggest personal achievements so far?

Being able to give back to society, gives me the greatest satisfaction. I try to achieve this by increasing community awareness on the significance of scientific research, effectively communicating tangible outcomes of scientific research to diverse audiences, or by educating and mentoring students.

What lessons would you share with a budding researcher?

Never be discouraged by failures and mistakes. What is important is that you learn from them.

What motivated you to be a researcher?

My desire to be able to fully understand and explain complex biological systems.

If there is a chance, will you help build research in Sri Lanka?

Yes, definitely.

According to your opinion, what are the changes that the Sri Lankan education system needs to do, in order to meet the requirement of the international industry and academia?

Sri Lankan universities need to keep constantly updating with the rapid advances and trends in science and technology. In this way, curricula and research projects could be formulated to provide students with appropriate skills to meet international industrial and academic requirements.