Professor Visakan Kadirkamanathan
Professor of Signal and Information Processing, and Director at the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre in Control, Monitoring and Systems Engineering, Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering.
Taking up my first academic position as a Lecturer in the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield on 1 January 1993 was transformational for me.
I arrived in the UK as a minority tamil escaping the Srilankan civil war and for my undergraduate studies in Engineering at Cambridge. I followed it up with a PhD and post-doctoral research there before embarking on my Sheffield career.
My academic research is focussed on building mathematical and computational dynamic models from data with applications in aircraft engines, healthcare, life science and environmental systems.
My roles include being the Director of the Rolls-Royce sponsored University Technology Centre in Control, Monitoring and Systems Engineering since 2012. I also had the privilege of being the Head of Department from 2009 to 2014.
It has been an enjoyable and fulfilling journey in this unique academic department at Sheffield. In addition to academic excellence, the department was also a place where I never felt different from others.
From the very first day, I found it to be very friendly, multicultural and one which celebrated diversity. This transcended to the University and the city and I am proud to be part of it.