Kushani Perera

Background

About Kushani Perera

Dr. Kushani Perera currently works as a Research Assistant at the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University. In this role, she conducts various in vitro bioassays to assess water quality for external consultancy projects. She recently completed her doctorate in the field of microplastics, focusing on characterizing airborne microplastics in both high-income and low-to-middle-income countries using microscopy and spectrometric techniques. Additionally, she explored cost-effective options to mitigate airborne microplastics and estimated the potential human health impacts and human exposure levels to this emerging contaminant. Before joining the Australian Rivers Institute, Kushani served as an Executive Environment Sustainability at one of South Asia’s largest apparel and textile manufacturing industries in Sri Lanka for over 3 years. In this role, she managed the organisation's energy, water, and carbon footprints and led a biodiversity conservation project that restored 30 acres of degraded forest within Sri Lanka. Additionally, she participated in all environment-related audits and environmental impact assessments and implemented the ISO 14001: 2015 within the organisation. She holds the NEBOSH Certificate in Environmental Management and ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Systems Auditor/ Lead Auditor training certification. Furthermore, she conducted environment-related training and awareness sessions for all employees of the organisation. She also contributed to an ocean plastic upcycling project aimed at producing yarn from PET bottles. Prior to that, she interned at the National Cleaner Production Centre Sri Lanka, where she conducted resource efficiency and cleaner production assessments, as well as chemical, energy, and water audits in corporate organisations. Kushani completed her undergraduate degree in BSc.(Special) Environmental Management and Forestry at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, graduating with first-class honours. Her undergraduate research focused on the effectiveness of domestic reverse osmosis (RO) units in removing fluoride and hardness in chronic kidney disease (CKD) affected areas in Sri Lankan through laboratory simulation experiments. Her interests and specialties include environmental sustainability and certifications, microplastics, microscopy and spectrometry, in vitro bioassay and water quality assessment.