Senior Lecturer
Applied Sciences
Email : shalika.harshani@appsc.sab.ac.lk
Academic Merits, Scholarships, and Awards
As an undergrad, I discovered that being a food scientist was a great way to apply basic scientific principles to everyday life. By its very nature, food science is an interdisciplinary field; it deals with the chemistry, biochemistry and nutritive values of foods. This interdisciplinary nature appealed to me right away. My motivation and desire to pursue exercise biochemistry and sports nutrition as a career really developed during my time as a graduate student at the Wuhan University of Technology, where I was fortunate to train in the lab of biochemical analysis. I also gained an understanding of the metabolic alterations that occurred with exercise training, and the applications that this had for both health and performance.
I have always had a passion for sport; as an athlete, and a fan. To me, however, it was never enough to simply understand who was the best based on their performance - I needed to understand why. What was it about a given athlete and their individual training or inherited physiology that gave them an edge? Similarly, I've long had an interest in understanding how the lifestyle decisions we make on a day-to-day basis (e.g. choice of food, physical activity participation, choice of sport) affect our current health and performance.
2016 to present: co-investigator - Impact of energy balance and physical activity changes on body composition and physical fitness during the university years of Sports Sciences undergraduates in Sri Lanka - funded by Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka
Google Scholar profile - Thalagalage Shalika Harshani Perera
Full papers published in indexed journals
Full papers published in non-indexed refereed journals
Publication as abstract in National and International Conferences