Meet Dulan Liyanage, My Green Lab's Market Development Representative

Join us in welcoming Dulan Liyanage to team My Green Lab! An MEng graduate from the University of Manchester, Dulan is a travel aficionado with a passion for sales and sustainability. He recently joined the team as Market Development Representative. 

​Learn more about Dulan, his interests, and his sustainability journey below!

Please tell us a little bit about yourself & your background.
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​Hi, my name is Dulan, and I am the newest addition to the Business Development Team at My Green Lab. My parents are Sri Lankan Sinhalese and they raised me in the cosy suburbs of South London with my two older brothers.
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​Therefore, as a second-generation immigrant, I’ve been besotted with the ‘travel-bug’ and have led a life all over England, before moving to Ireland. After completing high school in South London, I spent 4 years studying as a Material Scientist and Engineer at the University of Manchester. Whilst I was studying, I ran the Science Fiction and Fantasy Society for a couple of years and worked for the Students’ Union. After graduating with a MEng, I felt an urge to develop my engineering career and worked at an Industrial Control and Automation Distributor for 3 years in various roles. I moved to the Southwest of England, Bristol and then Bath, where I settled down for a while with my other half.

​I was nominated for the GAMBICA Young Persons’ Council in 2022 where I found myself a seat at the table, solving the biggest issues in the STEM Industries. It was there that I encountered My Green Lab, and the rest is history. Fueled by my skills and passion for sales and sustainability, I applied to join this amazing team and have been relishing the opportunity ever since. I am now in the process of moving to Ireland where I am building a new, and hopefully greener, life.

What is your role at My Green Lab?
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As Market Development Representative, I am working closely with our Business Development Team to increase the outreach of our ACT Label and My Green Lab Certification Programs. I am giving pitches to our prospective customers and inbound leads, whilst using my keen sales experience to conduct Outreach on both programs. I am also working with our wider team to help with strategic planning.

​What inspires you to do the kind of work you do?

​Change. Ever since I was little, I could never sit still, whether there was a problem to be solved or a meal to be made, I have always wanted to effect the change I want to see in the world in my own lifetime. Working in labs throughout university, especially during my dissertation on Nuclear Corrosion, I was constantly exposed to and responsible for the waste and sheer energy use that one scientist can impact upon a laboratory. Even in my daily life, the carbon footprint of the everyday person is far from negligible, but I have always struggled to affect change on a big enough scope to feel like I’m making an impact. At My Green Lab, I finally feel like each of us can make an astronomical impact on the industry wide sustainability crisis.

What are your personal sustainability goals?
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My next car will be at least a hybrid, and I intend to be driving electric once I am settled in a city. Furthermore, I intend to use renewable energy to help fuel my future residences. I have a soft spot for solar panels as they started my obsession with renewable energies as a teenager during my high school project on solar vs. wind energy and continued throughout my degree when learning about Photovoltaic Cell Doping. Furthermore, I strive to eat locally and want to cultivate my own crops in future years. Living off the land might be a stretch goal, but, just like in labs, the sustainability impact that we as consumers can have by choosing homegrown and organic sources of sustenance over supermarket produce is one of the ways I feel I can make the most impact and have better lives for it.

What are your hobbies outside of work?
 
The travel-bug reigns supreme, if for no other reason than to try and sample every different cuisine of every nation. I currently want to travel more of the North American states and South East Asian regions. I am finally returning to Sri Lanka after almost a decade this year where I cannot wait to climb the Sigiriya Mountain and have cocktails on the Beaches of Galle.

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Cooking and Baking: having inherited a colourful palette and love for tropical dishes. I spend a lot of my spare time in front of the kitchen stove stirring pots and pans for as many meals as I can spare time for. Cooking is one of the few hobbies I’ve found to be cathartic, productive, and rewarding, and I’ve strived to become more adept at different echelons of cuisine across all continents. I also spend way too much time playing board games and Nintendo and occasionally write poetry.

​What are your favourite books / movies?
 
Whilst most of the books I own are cookbooks, I have a soft spot for Sci-fi and Fantasy in all its forms, whether that is in cult classics like Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, or feminist pastiche such as Circe by Madeline Millar. The best book I’ve ever read, however, is Crying in H Mart by Michelle Yeoh, which is a tragic and poignant memoir that truly captures the experience of being a second-generation immigrant. I’ve also always been a bit of a superhero nerd when it comes to the cinema, and love to dabble in an animated movie or two; My favourite movie of all time has to be Kimi No Na Wa, a Japanese movie about star crossed lovers with a sci-fi twist.
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​Where do you call home?

At the moment… nowhere! I am moving between places for now, planning to spend some time with family in London and Ireland and gradually move over to Dublin. Maybe ask me next year…?!