Shirantha Welikala

Welcome to My Website!

Hello everyone!

I am Shirantha Welikala, a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA, which I joined in Fall 2023.

My research develops dissipativity-based and data-driven methods for the analysis, as well as distributed control and communication-topology co-design of large-scale networked cyber-physical systems. I work on DC and AC microgrids, vehicular platoons, supply chain networks, spreading processes over networks, and multi-robot persistent monitoring. My lab, ADIIS (Application-Driven Intelligent Interconnection Systems), extends this core theory while pursuing simulation and hardware implementations, with a group of motivated doctoral, master's, undergraduate and high-school researchers.

Prospective Students

I am looking for motivated Ph.D. students interested in control, optimization and learning for networked cyber-physical systems. If you would like to work on the challenges arising in next-generation interconnected multi-agent and networked systems, please email me at swelikal@stevens.edu with your CV and a short statement of interest, and apply to the Stevens Ph.D. programs in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering.

Teaching

In Spring 2026 I taught EE/CPE 345 Modeling and Simulation and CS/EE 605 Probability and Stochastic Processes I. In Fall 2026 I am teaching EE 602 Analytical Methods in Electrical Engineering, which can be considered a hybrid of graduate-level linear algebra and linear systems, discussed through examples drawn from cutting-edge electrical and computer engineering applications such as control systems, networked systems and deep learning.

Recent News

Aug 2026: Three papers on distributed control and topology co-design for DC microgrids, spreading networks and supply chain networks were accepted to the 65th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in Honolulu.
Aug 2026: Our paper with Theodore Rogalski on fully decentralized, safety-aware multi-agent reinforcement learning was accepted to the IEEE-HKN "Innovating the Future" papers conference.
Jul 2026: Presented our ECC 2026 paper on robust AC microgrids in Reykjavik, Iceland.
May 2026: Mohammad Javad Najafirad presented our ACC 2026 paper on DC microgrids with ZIP loads in New Orleans, and our abstract at the LSU Symposium on Control, Learning, and Intelligent Systems in Baton Rouge.
Apr 2026: Mohammad Javad Najafirad passed his Ph.D. proposal defense, TingYou Chung defended his M.S. thesis, and Theodore Rogalski defended his undergraduate thesis.
Oct 2025: Our paper on distributed adaptive backstepping control for vehicular platoons was published in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Aug 2025: Hosted and mentored two high-school researchers at Stevens Smart Lab and recognized as an ACES STARS Faculty Advisor by the Stevens ACES pre-college program.
Jul 2025: Our paper with Mohammad Javad Najafirad was selected as a Best Student Paper Award finalist at the 2025 American Control Conference in Denver.
Jul 2025: Received a Certificate of Commendation under the NSF Research Awards 2024 from the National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka, for our research project on non-intrusive load monitoring.
May 2025: TingYou Chung's project report won the ECE department's Spring Scholarship Award.
Apr 2025: Our paper on decentralized co-design of distributed controllers and communication topologies for vehicular platoons was published in Automatica, volume 174.
Dec 2024: Our paper "A Decentralized Control Synthesis Approach for Networked Systems with Arbitrary Interconnections" appeared in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, volume 69.
Dec 2024: Presented two papers at the 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in Milan, Italy, on dissipativity-based control and topology co-design for vehicular platoons, and on performance-guaranteed solutions for multi-agent optimal coverage.

Biography

I was formally a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN, USA (2021-2023). My post-doctoral research was on developing analysis, control synthesis and topology design techniques that are efficient, decentralized and compositional for large-scale networked systems using dissipativity theory. The main application domains where this research is being used are in smart-grid, supply chain systems and vehicular platoons. My current supervisors are Prof. Hai Lin and Prof. Panos J. Antsaklis.

I got my Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the Systems Engineering Division at Boston University, Brookline, MA, USA (2021). My doctoral research was on developing computationally efficient techniques to overcome the issue of local optima that arises in multi-agent optimization and control problems. During this research, a particular focus was given to develop distributed solutions for multi-agent coverage control, persistent monitoring, and distributed estimation problems. My doctoral thesis supervisor was Prof. Christos G. Cassandras.

I did my undergraduate studies in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (2011-2015). After graduation, I joined the same department first as a temporary instructor and then as a research assistant (2015-2017). During this period, my research was on developing an autonomous robotic system for reconnaissance applications and a non-intrusive load monitoring system for smart-grid applications. At the time, my research supervisors were Prof. Roshan Godaliyadda, Prof. Parakrama Ekanayake, Prof. Janaka Wijayakulasooriya, and Prof. Janaka Ekanayake.

I completed my primary, secondary, and tertiary education at Kingswood College, Kandy, Sri Lanka (1997-2010).

I hope you find this website informative. For more information, please feel free to reach out to me via email (shirantha27@gmail.com).

Have a nice day!