I was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka and had my early education in Sri Lanka. Having spent my entire school career at St. Johns College, Jaffna, I attended the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka briefly before moving to the UK. As a Christ’s College Scholar, I graduated with a Class I Degree in Electrical and Information Sciences from the Engineering Department at Cambridge University, followed by a Ph.D. in Information Engineering from the same institution. For the latter, I was awarded the Lord Mountbatten Memorial Scholarship from Christ´s College.

My first academic appointment was as Lecturer in the Department of Automatic Control & Systems Engineering at Sheffield in January 1993 following brief post-doctoral research positions at Cambridge and Surrey Universities. During the last few years, I was promoted to Senior Lecturer, then Reader and in 2007 to the position of Professor of Signal and Information Processing.

From April 2009 to August 2014, I have had the privilege of being the Head of Department during which time this unique Department has seen a significant expansion. In July 2012 I assumed the role of Director of the Rolls-Royce supported University Technology Centre in Control and Systems Engineering.