Faculty
Dr Suranga Seneviratne
Associate Professor in SecurityDr Suranga Seneviratne is an Associate Professor in Security at the School of Computer Science, The University of Sydney. His research interests include Security and Privacy and AI Applications in Security and Privacy. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Australia, in 2015. He received his BSc (Hons) degree and Postgraduate Diploma in Telecommunications from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, in 2005 and 2010, respectively. Currently, he is leading multiple projects funded by ARC, Defence, and other industry partners across various cybersecurity topics.
Research Fellows
Dr Charika Alvis
Research FellowCharika received her PhD in machine learning from the School of Computer Science at The University of Sydney, Australia in September 2017. From 2017 to 2020, Charika was a postdoctoral research associate with the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Group at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics of the University of Sydney. In 2022, Charika was awarded the Office of National Intelligence/National Intelligence Postdoctoral Grant and is currently a research fellow with the ONI and the University of Sydney.
Dr Fariza Rashid
Research FellowFariza received her PhD in applications of AI in cyber threat intelligence from the School of Computer Science at The University of Sydney. She completed a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Advanced Studies (Hons) in Data Science and Financial Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Sydney in 2021, as a recipient of the University of Sydney Scholar Chancellor’s Award. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow investigating unsupervised methods for behavioural biometric applications.
Dr Anirban Mahanti
Honorary Senior Research FellowAnirban Mahanti’s technical expertise is at the intersection of computer networking, data science, and machine learning. Anirban earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, in 2003, his MSc in Computer Science in 1999, and his BE in Computer Science and Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology, India, in 1993. He is currently an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney.
Dr Kosta Dakic
Research FellowKosta received his PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from RMIT University, Melbourne, in 2024, with a thesis on improving satellite connectivity using artificial intelligence and inter-satellite links. He completed his Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) at RMIT University in 2019. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Computer Science, University of Sydney, working on agentic AI for networking as part of the Defence Innovation Network. His research spans artificial intelligence for wireless communications, distributed machine learning, and resource-efficient perception.
HDR Students
Akila Niroshan
PhD StudentPostgraduate Researcher at University of New South Wales, Australia | Former Tech Lead at Axiata Digital Labs, Sri Lanka | B.Sc.Eng (Hons) in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka | Associate Member – Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka
Nishavi Ranaweera
PhD StudentA graduate from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, with a B.Sc. Honours in Computer Science, with almost 2 years of experience working as a Machine Learning Engineer at Neurotechnology Lab, Sri Lanka. Currently pursuing a PhD at UNSW, Sydney, focusing on building mobile app security solutions using AI. Research Interests: Deep Learning, AI, Mobile Security
Yasod Ginige
PhD StudentYasod Ginige is a doctoral student at the University of Sydney, specialising in empowering cybersecurity tools with AI. His current research focuses on developing advanced red- and blue-teaming techniques by enhancing existing tools and methods with LLMs and other deep learning approaches. Yasod’s work aims to develop sustainable solutions to mitigate cyber threats faced by small and medium enterprises in Australia.
Pasindu Marasinghe
PhD StudentPasindu Marasinghe is a doctoral student at the University of Sydney, specialising in intelligent manufacturing execution systems. His research focuses on optimising flat-glass cutting production for multiple objectives by integrating advanced technologies to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. Pasindu’s work aims to revolutionise the manufacturing industry by developing innovative solutions that leverage intelligent systems to address complex production challenges and improve overall operational performance.
Niruth Bogahawatta
PhD StudentNiruth Bogahwatta is a doctoral student at the University of Sydney, specialising in network engineering and signal processing. His research explores hardware-level imperfections—such as IQ imbalance and phase noise—to develop a passive fingerprinting system for early-stage device authentication, enhancing trust in distributed edge networks. He aims to design a lightweight verification mechanism that minimises overhead while seamlessly integrating into existing infrastructure.
Janadhi Uyanhewage
PhD StudentJanadhi Uyanhewage is a doctoral student at the University of Sydney, specialising in multimodal face detection under occlusion. Her research focuses on integrating multiple modalities to enhance the accuracy of face detection and recognition in challenging scenarios. Janadhi’s work aims to advance the field of facial recognition by developing robust methods that perform effectively under real-world conditions, such as occlusions and environmental noise.
Kujan Patel
MPhil StudentKunjan Patel is a security engineer and researcher focused on user and entity behaviour analytics (UEBA), security telemetry, detection engineering, and LLM and agentic-AI security.
He spent over seven years at Exabeam, where he led the Security Detection and Content team responsible for core detection content. His work included behavioural modelling for anomaly detection, investigating detection failures and telemetry data-quality issues, and collaborating with Exabeam’s Research and Innovation team on machine-learning approaches to parsing security telemetry as an alternative to brittle regex methods.
He later extended this work to AI systems, developing detection methods for prompt injection, jailbreaks, shadow-AI use, and anomalous agent activity, as well as telemetry collection for AI platforms and LLM-assisted tooling for threat investigation, detection authoring, and synthetic telemetry testing.
Honours/Capstone Students
- Vansh Srivastava
- Kriday Sharma
- Charlie Kairaitis
- Sagarika Manjunath Chavan
- Yixuan Guo
Past Students
PhD Students
- Thilini Dahanayaka
- Naveen Karunanayake
- Fariza Rashid
- Ravin Gunawardena
- Dishanika Denipitiyage
- Bhanuka Silva
Honours/Capstone
- Yiyan Wang
- Niruth Bogahawatta
- Alexander Vaskevich
- Nabeera Naeem
- Yu Hang How
- Jessica Carlyne Aryanto
- Jiarui Xu
- Henriette Elise Onarheim
- Ehab Ahmed
- Likai Tang
- Shixuan Sun
- Xinyuan Zhang
- Shihao Guo
- Holly Trikilis
- Belinda Hu
- Kuan-Hao Tseng
- George Zacharia
- Matthew Xu
- Shaohua Zhong
Interns
- Yasod Ginige
- Oshan Jayawardana
- Sandani Jayawardena
- Kalana Abeywardena
- Kavishka Gunathilaka
- Nima Wickramasinghe
- Yasiru Karunanayaka