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Biography

Nilmini Dissanayake is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Natural Material Innovation (CNMI) within the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. Nilmini is currently involved in the EU Horizon funded project , an innovative project aims to improve the circularity of wood used in construction by reusing and recycling to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation and materials consumption. She is assessing sustainability using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to quantify the environmental impact when reused and recycled wood is used for construction. Also, supports economic and social sustainability assessments using Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social LCA.

Nilmini completed her PhD at the University of Plymouth on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for flax fibre reinforced polymer matrix composites. She worked at the University of Exeter as a postdoctoral Researcher on a project funded by EPSRC to improve mechanical properties of natural fibre reinforced composites for potential use in automotive body panels. Following a 5-year career break, she joined National Physical Laboratory (NPL) as a Higher Research Scientist, having been awarded a Daphne Jackson Fellowship in 2018 to return to research. During the fellowship, she investigated the influence of moisture uptake on natural fibre reinforced polymer matrix composites using accelerated aging techniques, and mechanical creep was modelled using TTSP (Time-temperature super positioning) by DMA (Dynamic Mechanical Analysis). She led projects in sustainability of fibre reinforced composites and durability of natural fibre reinforced composites. Her work included investigating the data quality and measurement gaps exist within the LCA framework for composites, developing a set of recommendations and guidelines to improve the data quality and investigating traceability of recycled carbon fibre.

She is a member of the IOM3 (Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining) Advisory council, Local Affairs Committee, Membership Committee, Natural Materials Group (NMG) and Sustainability working group of composites group. 

Degrees

PhD in Engineering – University of Plymouth

BEng (Hons) in Manufacturing Systems Engineering, University of East London

Awards

Daphne Jackson fellowship (2018-2021)

Research Interests

Sustainability, Environmental impacts, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA), Circular Economy, Natural materials, Natural fiber reinforced composites