+94-21-206-0161

Prof. K. Ahilan

Professor in Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

B. Sc. Eng (Peradeniya), PhD(QUT,Australia)
Senior Member of the IEEE, AMIE(SL), MCS(SL)

(On Sabbatical Leave)

Research interests : Applying machine learning to solve business problems and help organizations make data-driven decisions.

  ahilan.eng@gmail.com     +94 21 206 0160


Prof. K. Ahilan joined the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka in 2017 as a senior lecturer. He is also working as visiting researcher at Speech, Audio, Image and Video Technologies (SAIVT) lab, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He is holding Australian and Sri Lankan Citizenships since 2016.

He received B.Sc Eng Degree with first class honours (3.80/4.00) from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka in 2008 and PhD from Queensland University of Technology, Australia in 2014.

Ahilan worked as machine learning and speech processing researcher at SAIVT lab, Queensland University of Technology, Australia from Oct 2014 to July 2016. He also worked as visiting researcher at ATVS lab, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain from Nov 2012 to Apr 2013. From September 2008 till July 2010, he worked as Business Development and Technical Support Engineer at Sri Lanka Telecom (PLC) Head Quarters, Colombo.

Awards and Recognition

  • ICT Researcher of the Year by SEARCC Global ICT Awards (2018).
  • ICT researcher of the year award by Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) (2018).
  • Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association (ASSTA) new researcher award, 2014.

International Contest winning

  • Participated DIHARD speaker diarization challenge II
  • Participated DIHARD speaker diarization challenge I
  • Participated Speakers in the Wild (SITW) 2015 speaker recognition challenge, and our system came 2nd as an organization, and our two systems came 3rd and 5th (out of 26 systems submitted).
  • Participated National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 2012 speaker recognition evaluations.

Scholarships/Fellowships

  • India Science and Research Fellowship (ISRF) funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, 2018.
  • European Commission Marie Curie ITN BBfor2 network sponsored internship program, 2012.
  • Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Automotive Technology AutoCRC postgraduate scholarship, 2010.

Travel Awards

  • Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association (ASSTA) travel award, 2013.

Admin roles

University

  • Coordinator of Renewable Energy Park, Faculty of Engineering – 2017 to 2022
  • Coordinator of Internal Quality Assurance Cell, Faculty of Engineering – 2019 to 2022
  • Coordinator of B.Ed Program – 2020 - 2021
  • Coordinator of MSc program in Clean Energy Technologies – 2020 to present
  • Student counsellor – 2020, 2021 and 2022
  • Coordinator of machine learning & signal processing research group – 2020 to present
  • Advisory board member for Training Hub of Renewable Energy Technologies for Sri Lanka/ THREE-LANKA.
  • Senior Treasurer of Electrical & Electronic Engineering Society – 2022 to present
  • Faculty representative for Senate – 2018 to 2021
  • Treasurer of welfare society of faculty of Engineering – 2022 to present
  • Student branch chapter advisor for IEEE Signal Processing Society Student Branch Chapter -2021 to present
  • Technical advisor for Renewable Energy in development committee of the Kilinochchi premises of the University of Jaffna from 2017 to 2020

National

  • Member of steering committee of young scientist forum, National Science & Technology Commission – 2021 and 2022
  • Executive member of IEEE Sri Lanka section – 2021 and 2022
  • Treasurer of IEEE Sri Lanka Section Signal Processing Society Chapter – 2021
  • Council member of Sri Lanka Academy of Young Scientist – 2021

Editorial work

  • Associate editor of IET biometric journal – 2021 to present
  • Editor of IEEE Sri Lanka section – 2021 and 2022

Member

  • Senior Member of the IEEE
  • Associate Member of the IESL
  • Professional Member of the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL)
  • Member of faculty research committee – 2017 to present
  • Member of academic development and planning committee – 2017 to present
  • Member of board of study Engineering – 2020 to present
  • Member of board of study Science – 2021 to present
  • Member of IESL library committee – 2021

Resource person

  • Delivered an invited talk on deep learning basics and its application for healthcare, Organized by The Institute of Engineering Technology (IET) on campus – KDU, KDU: General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University.
  • Delivered an invited talk on deep learning basics and its application for renewable energy, Organized by THREE - Lanka Project - University of Jaffna Center

Inter-faculty teaching

  • Visiting lecturer at Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Jaffna, 2016.
  • Visiting lecturer at Department of Physical Science, Faculty of Applied Science, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, 2017.
  • Visiting lecturer for BEd in Engineering Technology program, 2018 to 2019.
  • Moderator and second marker of examination to the Faculty of Technology, University of Jaffna.

Conference related activities

  • Served as publicity co-chair for International Conference on Information and Automation for Sustainability (ICIAfS) 2018..
  • Track Chair - Technological Advances in Science, Medicine, and Engineering Conferences (TASME) 2021..
  • Technical Program Committee (Track Conveners), International Conference on Engineering, University of Jaffna, 2022.
  • Technical Program Committee Member - International Conference on Advancements in Computing.
  • National Advisory Committee Member - 2nd International Conference on Science, Engineering and Management

Newsletter Articles

  • First Floating Solar Pilot Plant in Sri Lanka, K. Ahilan, IEEE SL Section Newsletter February 2021
  • Technological Advances and Electromagnetic Pollution, K. Ahilan, Vidurava, The Science Magazine of the National Science Foundation, Volume 38 April - June 2021, ISSN 1391-0299
  • Skill Development in Renewable Energy Technologies, Contributions from University of Jaffna Center through THREE - Lanka Project , U. Anuraj, K. Ahilan, S. Vinothine, V. Mugilgeethan, R. Rajan, M. Yuvaraj, T. Tharsika, S. Thananjeyan, Y. Balathasan, S.H.I. Hameed, B. Kiriparan, J. Sajeeva, A. Atputharajah, Faculty of Engineering, University of Jaffna, IESL vadakin chapter Annual Transactions, December 2021.

Reviewer for Journals

  • Computer Speech & Language
  • Speech Communication
  • IET Signal Processing
  • IET Biometrics


  • NVIDIA GPU grant (2018).
  • University research grant (2018 - 2019)
  • India Science & Research Fellowship award (2018 - 2019).
  • European Commission Marie Curie ITN BBfor2 network sponsored internship program, 2012.
  • Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Automotive Technology AutoCRC postgraduate scholarship, 2010.
  • AHEAD - Research, Innovation and Commercialization Grants - 36 million ( 2020 - 2022)

  • Applying wide range of machine learning and deep learning algorithms to different speech signal processing and computer vision applications such as speech recognition, speaker diarization, speaker recognition, and face recognition.
  • Applying machine learning to solve business problems and help organizations make data-driven decisions.

Patents
International patents
Shenal Mario Udara Meegaswatta, Wel Hengodage Sasinda Chandula Prabhashana, Kanagasundaram Ahilan, Ragupathyraj Valluvan, “System and Method for Automobile Emission Measurement”, WO/2022/185119, 2022
National patents
Shenal Mario Udara Meegaswatta, Wel Hengodage Sasinda Chandula Prabhashana, Kanagasundaram Ahilan, Ragupathyraj Valluvan, ” An Internet of things (IOT) based low-cost portable emission measurement system (PEMS)”, LK/21650, 2022.
Kanagasundaram Ahilan, “An Unsupervised Domain Compensation Approach for Speaker Recognition Systems”, LK/20411, 2021.