Prof. Saman Halgamuge, an alumnus of University of Moratuwa is one of the three Sri Lankans recognised by IEEE as Fellows of the Society from January 2017. The other two Sri Lankans are Prof Nallanathan Arumugam of Kings College London and Prof Janaka Ekanayake of University of Peradeniya.
After completing his B.Sc. Engineering in Electronics and Telecommunication at University of Moratuwa and a brief stint of working as an Engineer at the Ceylon Electricity Board, he entered the degree program of Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, where he completed a second first degree in Data Engineeringwhile holding a WUS Germany scholarship. He also completed the PhD degree at the same institution holding a scholarship from Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Germany.
Prof Saman Halgamuge is currentlythe Director/Head, Research School of Engineering of the Australian National University. He also holds the Prof V.K. Samaranayake Endowed Professorship of University of Colombo. He has held appointments as Professor and Associate Dean International at the University of Melbourne. In Sri Lanka, He has held UNDP funded visiting appointments at University of Peradeniya, University of Colombo and Institute of Fundamental Studies.
He works in the research area of Data engineering, which includes Big Data Analytics and Optimization focusing on applications in Mechatronics, Energy and Bioinformatics. He has been a frequently invited public speaker anddelivered about 20 keynote speeches worldwide. His recent keynotes include The 16th International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB 2017) (Shenzhen, China, 2017), Emerging Big Data Technologies Summit (EBDTS) (Melbourne, 2016), IEEE MERCON (Moratuwa, 2016), IEEE ICIIS (Gwalior, 2014) and IEEE ICCSC (Vancouver, 2014).
He completed supervision of 32 PhD students and currently supervises a group of 15 PhD students. Among these PhD students are 20 graduates of Sri Lankan Universities including 12 University of Moratuwa graduates. He is an Associate Editor of BMC Bioinformatics and IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Letters and founding co-editor of Frontier’s journal on Mechanical Engineering- Mechatronics section. He is a member of Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts panel for Engineering, Information and Computing Sciences.
His publication profile is at http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?sortby=pubdate&hl=en&user=9cafqywAAAAJ&view_op=list_works
His achievements also include the leadership outside the technical discipline. He has recently worked with University Grants Commission to develop UGC-University of Melbourne jointly funded PhD scholarship program for Sri Lankan University Staff. As a student of University of Moratuwa he held the portfolios of Vice President of WUS Sri Lanka, Secretary of WUS at University of Moratuwa and the Chair of the External Relations Committee of the Students Union of the Engineering Faculty.