Mrs Gaya Rajagopal

Gayathri Rajagopal is a PhD candidate (1st year) in the Centre for Nutrition and Food sciences at  Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.  She completed a Master of Agribusiness from UQ in 2018 with several accomplishments, a few being the Future superstar award from UQ's Faculty of Science in 2019, Edwin Munro Scholarship in Agricultural sciences in 2018 and dean's commendations for academic excellence throughout her masters. Her master's thesis focussed on life cycle assessments of different packaging options for vegetable export from Queensland. After her graduation, she secured a highly sought out graduate role within the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries as a graduate scientist and later progressed on to the role of a development horticulturist.  In Jan 2021, Gaya joined the ARC centre for Uniquely Australian Foods  for her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Yasmina Sultanbawa and her research focuses on integrating science and technology with traditional indigenous knowledge to coproduce better outcomes for Australian native botanicals' value chain. Her PhD is a mixture of agribusiness and food science which motivated Gaya to participate in the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association's (IFAMA) global case study competition that was held in two rounds from May -June 2021.