SL food expert views top awards as icing on her cake

Dr Anne Perera receiving the J.C. Andrews Award on 6th July 2022 from Prof Phil Bremmer, President of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology (NZIFST)

Dr Anne Perera was elected a Fellow of the International Academy of Food Science & Technology (IAFoST) in Singapore on 2nd November 2022 and was presented with her award by Dr Ogugua Aworh, President of IAFoST.

Sri Lankan Food and Nutrition Consultant in New Zealand receives top National, International Awards

She received a Scholarship to follow her Masters degree in Food Technology at the FAO International Food Technology Training Center at the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) in Mysore, India

Dr. Anne Doloras Perera, who hails from Moratuwa and currently living in New Zealand, became the recipient of the most prestigious J.C.Andrews Award for Food Science and Technology in New Zealand for 2022.  She received this award at the Annual Conference of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology (NZIFST) held in Rotorua in July 2022.

This year the International Academy of Food Science and Technology has also recognised her by granting her a Fellowship at the World Food Congress of the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) and held in November in Singapore. 

 Dr. Anne feels very grateful to have received these two awards this year and says “I thank God for giving me the talents and opportunities to multiply them and use them for the benefit of others.”  She has studied and or worked in seven countries (Sri Lanka, India, USA, Brazil, New Zealand, Singapore and Tanzania) and feels more like a global citizen than belonging to one country.  Yet she says that all these recognitions are like the icing and cherry on the cake, but quoting the late Lakshman Kidirgamar, she says that the cake was baked in Sri Lanka when it was called Ceylon. 

She left the island in 1970 after graduating with an honours degree in Agriculture (1965-69) from the then University of Ceylon at Peradeniya, where she had served as an Assistant Lecturer in Agricultural Chemistry under the late Prof Stanley Kalpage.  She became interested in Food Science and Technology, a subject that was not offered in the country at that time.
She received a Scholarship to follow her Masters degree in Food Technology at the FAO International Food Technology Training Center at the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) in Mysore, India. She was one of the two students from Ceylon in the class of 1970-72, the other student, Prof Conrad Perera later became Anne’s husband and hence her name Dr Anne Doloras Perera. The FAO centre had two students from each of the Asian countries and one student from each State of India.  

From India, Anne went to the United States on another International Scholarship to do her Ph D in Food and Nutrition at Oregon State University.  Conrad who worked in Mozambique in Africa for six months joined Anne and also did his PhD in Food Science and Technology at the same university. They got married in the US and after completing their doctoral degrees, went to help the State University of Londrina in Brazil start a new programme of Food Technology. 

After four years there, they immigrated to New Zealand in 1981 and have been dual citizens of Sri Lanka and New Zealand. They had the opportunity to work in Singapore from 2000 to 2005.  Dr. Anne had co-authored two Nutrition related books and written part of her own biography under the title ‘Thank You for being My Father’ which was written as a tribute to a stepfather she had for most of her life, after her own father died when she was just 6 months old.  Dr. Anne Perera is the daughter of late Don Gerard and Licy Charlotte Silva and the stepdaughter of late Remical Anthony Fernando of Moratuwa.  

She had her primary school education at the Convent of Our Lady of Victories Moratuwa and secondary school at Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya from where she entered University of Ceylon in 1965 to do her undergraduate honours degree in Agriculture.  

Dr. Anne completed an MBA (with distinction) from Massey University In New Zealand in 1993 and also a diploma in Counselling Psychology from the Lee Community College in Singapore in 2002. She has worked in Academic Research and Industry sectors of Food Science and Technology. From 2010-12 she served as a Food and Nutrition Advisor to Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO) in Tanzania under the auspices of Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) NZ. She has also served on two more voluntary assignments in Tanzania in 2013 and 2016.

Where to from here? She would like to help wherever her services are needed and that includes Sri Lanka.  Her motto is “I aspire to inspire before I expire.”  For further information see www.anneperera.co.nz