Udaya Wanasundara

Vice President, Innovation and R&D
udaya@algarithm.caLinkedIn

In 2017, Dr. Wanasundara Co-Founded Algarithm. Previous to Algarithm’s founding Dr. Udaya Wanasundara joined POS Bio- Sciences in January 1999. Today Udaya serves as the President – Global Ingredient Commercialization– Lipids and Co-Products at Algarithm parent company POS, his responsibilities include supervision and mentoring junior scientists, carrying out projects/processes related to fats and oils, overseeing of business development at POS group of companies. He specializes in the area of fats and oils and his expertise covers a wide range of areas including extraction, isolation and purification of lipids and associated components from oilseeds and other microbial biomass (algae, bacteria, fungi and yeast) for food and non-food use, process development for edible and industrial oils, etc. He has carried out research related to ingredient development for nutraceuticals and functional foods, as well as lipid by-product utilization, concentration of fatty acids, chemical and enzymatic esterification, structural modification of lipids. He also has extensive expertise in supercritical extraction, processing and stabilization against oxidation of omega-3 oils. Dr. Wanasundara is a graduate (B.Sc. Agric.) from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and had completed his graduate studies (M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Food Science) at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. He is a professional member of the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technologies (CIFST), Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS). He is a Certified Food Scientist (CFS) and has produced more than 34 refereed publications, 22 book chapters and 5 patents and patent applications and has given more than 50 presentations at professional meetings. He is a co-editor of the book Seafood Quality, Safety and Health Applications that was published in 2011.