Wondering what the future might sound like? Dr Prasanga Samarasinghe and her team from the Australian National University (ANU) Audio and Acoustic Signal Processing Group is on a mission to find out.

Recently appointed as a Future Engineering Research Leader (FERL) at the ANU Research School of Electrical, Energy and Materials Engineering, Dr Samarasinghe will collaborate with the best minds in the world to advance audio and acoustic signal processing research.

“It’s a great honour to be recognised for the work I’ve done and by accepting this role, I’ve been given an amazing opportunity to expand my research work through developing my own research group and laboratory facilities. I aspire to nurture the next generation of innovative creators from my discipline, and this position will certainly be a catalyst in achieving it,” Dr Samarasinghe said.

As an established researcher, much of Dr Samarasinghe’s work has focused on spatial audio, room acoustics, microphone and loudspeaker arrays, and noise cancellation. She aims to further advance these areas with a special interest in data driven methods.

“I would like to explore how audio and acoustic signal processing techniques can be integrated with the increasing capabilities of computational power and storage solutions, so that distributed arrays of microphones and loudspeakers can be better exploited to change the way we consume audio in the future,” she said.

During her time at ANU, Dr Samarasinghe has been instrumental in initiating and fostering solid industry relationships. Recently this included an Australian Research Council Linkage project with Dolby Laboratories.

“My goal is to connect research expertise with engineering excellence to develop innovative audio and acoustic solutions with high academic, social and commercial impact. In my field of interest, this is impossible without meaningful industry relationships. With audio signal processing playing a major part in the smart device space, industry partners will also benefit from such relationships,” she explains.

Dr Samarasinghe joined ANU in 2010 as a PhD student and is often asked if she misses life outside of Canberra. “Fortunately, over the years, I have accumulated a wide range of external exposure through international conferences, research visits, and industry visits. I’ve also exploited these opportunities to build a number of long-lasting collaborations across multiple research fields. ANU seems to really value those kinds of relationships,” she said. 

Dr Samarasinghe has an undergraduate Engineering degree from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, and holds a PhD from ANU. She is currently a research lead across two Australian Research Council projects and is a joint supervisor of the ANU Acoustic Signal Processing Group.