Professor Liyanage is currently a Research Fellow at the NIFS and heads the Nutritional Biochemistry group. In 2000, she obtained a BSc in Agriculture from the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Professor Liyanage obtained her M Sc from the Laboratory of Nutritional Biochemistry, Department of Food Science, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Japan with a thesis titled "Some bovine proteins reduce serum lipids in rats" in 2006. She read for her PhD at the same university and obtained her PhD in 2009 with a thesis titled "Hypocholesterolemic ability of dietary proteins and peptides in vivo".

From 2001 to 2003 Professor  Liyanage worked as a Scientific Officer at the National Science Foundation (NSF), Colombo, Sri Lanka. She is a Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Integrative obesity and diabetes. Professor Liyanage received a NRC merit award for scientific publications in 2015. She is a Co-Investigator in the “Development of household food security models for poverty stricken areas of Sri Lanka” project