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LECTURER
UCSI University, Malaysia
Dr Vaidehi Ulaganathan is a senior lecturer attached to the Faculty of Applied Sciences, UCSI University located in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. She has a Bachelor Degree in Biomedicine (Hons) from Management and Science University (2009), Masters of Science in Nutritional Sciences (2012) and a Doctoral Degree in the field of Clinical Nutrition (2018) both from Universiti Putra Malaysia. She also completed and passed her Good Clinical Practice (GCP) in 2018.
Her main research expertise is on Clinical Nutrition emphasizing health eating and wellness mainly among cancer patients and other non-communicable chronic disease patients. In 2012, she won Gold Medal for her research presentation in conjunction of National World Cancer Day celebration. Currently she has a research grant from Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS: RM127 000) assessing the salt intake in Malaysian population in relation to hypertension, cardiovascular disease as well as chronic kidney diseases.
As to prevent chronic diseases in adulthood, she initiated several studies among secondary school students to promote healthy eating and lifestyle and healthy food choice at home and school canteen. In line to these efforts, two schools that participated in her research received “Kafe Sihat” accreditation from Nutrition Division, Ministry of Health in 2018. She had emphasizes her research and community engagements on physical wellness as one of the key strategies to promote healthy living among children, adolescents and young adults. Currently she received institutional grant, Research Excellence & Innovation Grant (REIG) value RM37500 to initiate e-learning to promote health food choice in school canteen.
She also received Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) grant from Bank Rakyat for three consecutive years since 2019 targeting to improve nutrition and physical wellness among underprivileged children. In 2019, the project involved almost 2500 children in Shah Alam (RM 30000), in 2020 involve 400 aborigine children in Negeri Sembilan (RM 40000) and in 2021 the project is ongoing among 150 children from urban poor population in Kuala Lumpur (RM 40000). The value of these grants are almost RM300 000 as PI. In 2020, her project received Junaidah Award in Medical & Health Science Symposium.
She is a life member of Nutrition Society of Malaysia in 2010, member of Malaysian Association for the Study of Obesity (MASO) and American Nutrition Society since 2020. She is supervising a PhD student and a MSc students, co-supervising a PhD while two Msc students were graduated in 2020. Currently she has 18 publications (3 books and 15 papers in cited journals) and 38 conference proceedings.