Dr. Chamini Mendis is the newly appointed Reader in Mg research. Prior to this, she was a research scientist at the Magnesium Innovation Centre (MagIC) in the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht in Germany.

She received her Ph.D. (2005), M.Eng.Sci. (2000) and BE/LLB (1995/1997)) in Materials Engineering from the Monash University, Australia. Following the doctoral studies, prior to moving to MagIC, she spent 6 years at the National Institute for Materials Science (Tsukuba, Japan) working with Prof. Kazuhiro Hono, first as a JSPS postdoctoral fellow and then as a MANA researcher, the design and characterization of light metallic materials especially newly developed precipitation hardable magnesium alloys, with a special focus on the characterization of nano-scaled particles using advanced transmission electron microscopy and 3 dimensional atom probe tomography.

She has published over 100 research publications including research papers in scientific journals, conference proceedings and a book chapter. She is a member of the magnesium committee The Materials Metals and Mineral Society (TMS) was a guest editor of the institute journal JOM.

Her current research interest includes development of new advanced magnesium alloys for structural applications using low cost alloying additions for both cast and wrought applications, microstructure property relationships of light alloys, solid-state phase transformations in light metallic alloys with focus on Mg alloys and solidification and thermomechanical processing of Mg alloys.