Prof. Nimsha Weerakkody obtained her Doctor of Philosophy degree from the School of Food Science and Agriculture at the University of Queensland Australia, in the field of Food Molecular and Microbiology on 19th December 2011. She received two competitive research grant awards from the National Science Foundation and National Research Council of Sri Lanka. She published several refereed journal articles related to the identification of novel phytochemicals having antimicrobial activity, performed toxicity studies for safe use and identification and characterization of probiotics. She served as a visiting academic at the University of Queensland, Australia, in 2019. She obtained industrial exposure from the leading microbiological testing company Mérieux NutriSciences and Nestle Pvt Ltd.