Associate ProfessorShanika Nanayakkara

Shanika Nanayakkara is an Assocaite Professor at the Sydney Dental School and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She serves as the academic lead for research education in the Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) program, and also serves as the Chair of the Sydney Dental School Student Professionalism Committee.

A/Prof Nanayakkara earned her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka and completed her PhD at Kyoto University's Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, supported by a prestigious JSPS research fellowship. She joined the University of Sydney as a postdoctoral researcher supported by the Schwartz Foundation.

A key milestone in her academic leadership was the establishment of the Westmead Oral Health Biobank, which forms part of the Westmead Precinct Biobanking Consortium. Her research focuses on the pathological mechanisms and risk factors associated with chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology (CKDu) and environmental determinants of health. With expertise in clinical epidemiology and quantitative data analysis, A/Prof Nanayakkara collaborates widely with research teams across the Sydney Dental School and Local Health Districts.