Prof. Saman Halgamuge
Professor
The University of Melbourne, Australia
Profile:
Prof. Saman Halgamuge, Fellow of IEEE and IET, received the B.Sc. Engineering degree in Electronics and Telecommunication from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, and the Dipl.-Ing. and Ph.D. degrees in Data Engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Electrical, Mechanical and Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne.
He is listed among the world's top 2% most-cited researchers in Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing in the Stanford University database. He served as an IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Distinguished Lecturer (2018–2021) and has successfully supervised 50 Ph.D. students and 16 postdoctoral researchers in Australia.
His research has been supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC), National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the U.S. Department of Defense Biomedical Research Program, and several international industry partners. His previous leadership roles include Head of the School of Engineering at the Australian National University and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at The University of Melbourne. His research and teaching interests include Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Optimization, and Intelligent Systems.
Dr. Malka N. Halgamuge
Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Profile:
Dr. Malka N. Halgamuge is a Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. She currently serves as Chair of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (Victorian Section), Vice Chair of the IEEE Victorian Section, Australia, and Geo-Diversity Co-Chair (Oceania) of N2Women. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS Pilani) and Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), India.
She serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (Elsevier). She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at The University of Melbourne.
Dr. Halgamuge has been the Chief Investigator on multiple research grants totaling more than AUD 2 million, funded by Australian Government agencies including DFAT, the Department of Defence, the Defence Science Institute (DSI), ATSE, and the Department of Industry.
Prior to joining RMIT, she was a Researcher at The University of Melbourne and later a Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity at La Trobe University. She also managed the Australian Government's Cyber Security Skills Partnership Innovation Fund, leading collaborations with industry partners including Cisco, Optus, Wiley, GHD, Quantum Victoria, Practera, and War on Wasted Talent to strengthen Australia's cyber security workforce.
Her research interests include the Internet of Things (IoT), cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, data communications, large language models (LLMs), and energy-efficient intelligent systems. She has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed publications, 35 book chapters, and five books. Her work has received over 6,000 Google Scholar citations (h-index: 40), and according to SciVal, she ranked among RMIT University's leading researchers by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (2022–2026).