Clinical Nutrition, Public Health Nutrition, Development of disease specific food formulation and its clinical trials, Pharmacognosy, Food product development, Nutritional Oncology, Food analysis, Food Science, Biostatistics, Dietetics

Dr. Namratha Pai K is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Dietetics and Applied Nutrition, Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal. She has completed her doctorate in Food Science and Nutrition on the topic entitled "Impact of Nutrition intervention on nutritional status and clinical outcomes in subjects with Head and Neck Cancer" from University of Mysore. She is a Researcher and an Academician, with over 10 years of experience in Research and teaching. She has worked as a UGC-BSR Research Fellow in the UGC-DRS II project entitled “Development of disease specific functional foods and clinical trials in target groups” at DOS in Food Science and Nutrition, Manasagangotri, University of Mysore. She has also worked in the UGC-IOE for her Master's dissertation. She has served as Teaching assistant in Food and Nutrition for UGC-CEC SWAYAM project, Ministry of Education, Government of India from 2019 - 2023, and as a Subject expert for Food and Nutrition in MOOC course content development for NME-ICT project, Ministry of Human Resource Development (now Ministry of Education), Government of India (2016-17). She has several publications, books and book chapters to her credit and has presented her research work in several National and International conferences. Her research work has been conferred with 11 Best paper awards at various conferences. She has received the DST-SERB ITS Travel Grant to attend the 22nd IUNS ICN International Congress of Nutrition, Tokyo, Japan in December 2022. She has cleared UGC-NET for Lectureship in June 2013. 

Awards and Recognition:

• “Manjula Suma Memorial Cash Prize” for being the University topper (Rank 2) in M.Sc Food science and Nutrition for the year 2011-2013, University of Mysore.

• Second prize in quiz competition on the topic “Current concepts in Diabetes management” as part of World Diabetes day activity held in December 2014 at DOS in Food science and Nutrition.

• Best Poster Award entitled “Antioxidant activity of medicinal plants in lipid dense biological substrates” at the National Conference on “Phytochemicals and Functional foods: Current situation and Future prospects”, organized by JSS college of arts, commerce and science, February 2015.

• Felicitated with the “Certificate of Excellence for winning the Best Oral Presentation award” for the paper entitled “Effect of Nutrition Impact Symptoms on Quality of Life in subjects with Head and Neck Cancer” Global Cancer Summit, International Collaborative Conference, 18th-20th November 2015, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India.

• Second prize for a research poster presented as part of National Nutrition Week, 1st-7th September 2016 for the paper entitled “EORTC QLQ-C30 3.0 and QLQ-OG25 as Assessment Tools to study the Quality of Life in subjects with Gastrointestinal Cancer” organized by Azzurra Pharmaconutrition.

• Best poster award under experimental nutrition for the paper entitled “Anti-cancer potential of Morus indica extracts in HT-29 cell line” presented at 48th Annual National Conference of the Nutrition Society of India with the theme Nutrition risk management and communication, 4th – 5th November 2016, Bengaluru, India

• Third prize for the paper entitled “Suitability of Metallized Polyethylene film for its application in the packaging of food formulation”, International conference on recent trends in Agriculture, Biotechnology and Food Processing, held at College of Agriculture, 5th-7th July 2017, Hassan.

• First prize for the paper entitled “Inhibitory potency of Morus sp. on advanced glycation end products”, International conference on recent trends in Agriculture, Biotechnology and Food Processing, held at College of Agriculture, 5th-7th July 2017, Hassan.

• Best Poster Award for the paper entitled Sensory Analysis, Granule Morphology and Estimated Glycemic Index of selected Stevia based Indian Desserts. 50th Annual International Conference of Nutrition Society of India, held at National Institute of Nutrition, 15-17th November 2018, Hyderabad.

• Best Student Presentation Award for paper entitled In vitro starch and protein digestibility profile of processed food supplement developed for therapeutic use. International Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Safety – “Global Food Security, Reality and Challenges”, 07th – 08th November 2019, Colombo, Srilanka.

 • Best Poster Presentation Award for the paper entitled Studies on sensory attributes, physicochemical parameters and microstructure of Stevia rebaudiana based selected Indian desserts. 3rd International Conference on Food Nutrition, Health and Lifestyle, 07th – 8th November 2019, Bangkok, Thailand

• DST-SERB ITS Travel Grant: Awarded to attend 22nd IUNS ICN International Congress of Nutrition, 6th – 11th December 2022, Tokyo, Japan.

• 2nd Prize under the Best Poster category of Practising Dieticians for the paper entitled Use of Patient Generated-Subjective Global Assessment Tool to assess the Impact of Medical Nutrition Therapy in subjects with Head and Neck Cancer, 15th Apollo International Clinical Nutrition Update, 23rd – 24th September 2023, Novotel, Goa.

• 3 years of teaching experience as an Assistant Professor at MAHE, Manipal and 5 years as a Guest faculty at various Institutions of Mysuru  

• 10 years of research experience at MAHE, Manipal and University of Mysore, Mysuru.

• 7 years of Professional experience as a part-time Dietician at a wellness center.