Awards

[A19] ACES STARS Faculty Advisor Recognition, Stevens ACES pre-college program, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2025.

[A18] Certificate of Commendation, NSF Research Awards 2024, National Science Foundation, Sri Lanka, 2025.

[A17] Best Student Paper Award Finalist, 2025 American Control Conference, Denver, CO, USA, 2025 (with M. J. Najafirad).

·      For the paper: Mohammad Javad Najafirad and Shirantha Welikala. Dissipativity-Based Distributed Droop-Free Control and Communication Topology Co-Design for DC Microgrids. In Proc. of American Control Conf., pages 1153–1160, 2025. [IEEExplore]

[A16] President's Award for Scientific Research, National Research Council of Sri Lanka, 2023.

·      For the paper: Shirantha Welikala, Chinthaka Dinesh, Parakrama B. Ekanayake, Roshan I. Godaliyadda, and Janaka B. Ekanayake. Incorporating Appliance Usage Patterns for Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring and Load Forecasting. IEEE Trans. on Smart Grid, 10(1):448–461, 2019. [IEEExplore]

[A15] President's Award for Scientific Research, National Research Council of Sri Lanka, 2023.

·      For the paper: Shirantha Welikala, Neelanga Thelasingha, Muhammed Akram, Parakrama B. Ekanayake, Roshan I. Godaliyadda, and Janaka B. Ekanayake. Implementation of a Robust Real-Time Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring Solution. Applied Energy, 238:1519–1529, 2019. [ScienceDirect]

[A14] Best Paper Award, 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, Athens, Greece, 2022.

·      For the paper: Shirantha Welikala, Hai Lin, and Panos J. Antsaklis. A Generalized Distributed Analysis and Control Synthesis Approach for Networked Systems with Arbitrary Interconnections. In Proc. of 30th Mediterranean Conf. on Control and Automation, pages 803–808, 2022. [IEEExplore]

[A13] Rising Star in Cyber-Physical Systems, 1st CPS Rising Stars Workshop, University of Virginia, VA, USA, 2022.

·      For the poster presentation: Shirantha Welikala. Versatile, Scalable and Robust Optimal Control of Cooperative Multi-Robot Systems in Persistent Monitoring. CPS Rising Stars Workshop, University of Virginia, VA, USA, 2022.

[A12] Outstanding Dissertation Award, Division of Systems Engineering, Boston University, MA, USA, 2021.

·      For the dissertation: Shirantha Welikala. Overcoming Local Optima in Control and Optimization of Cooperative Multi-Agent Systems. PhD thesis, Boston University, 2021. [OpenBU]

[A11] President's Award for Scientific Research, National Research Council of Sri Lanka, 2019.

·      For the paper: Chinthaka Dinesh, Shirantha Welikala, Yasitha S. Liyanage, Parakrama B. Ekanayake, Roshan I. Godaliyadda, and Janaka B. Ekanayake. Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring Under Residential Solar Power Influx. Applied Energy, 205:1068–1080, 2017. [ScienceDirect]

[A10] Ceylon Electricity Board Gold Medal, for the Best Performance in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2015.

[A9] Ceylon Electricity Board Prize, for the Best Performance in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2015.

[A8] Prof. W.P. Jayasekara Prize, for the Best Final Year Research Project in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2015.

[A7] Prof. E.F. Bartholomeusz Prize, for the Best Performance in Engineering Mathematics, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2015.

[A6] Prof. E.F. Bartholomeusz Prize, for the Best FYRP in terms of Engineering Mathematics, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2015.

[A5] Prof. W.M.G. Fernando Prize, for the Best Performance in Electronic Communications, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2015.

[A4] Bronze Medal, International Physics Olympiad, Bangkok, Thailand, 2011.

[A3] Participant, Asian Physics Olympiad, Tel-Aviv, Israel, 2011.

[A2] Gold Medal, National Physics Olympiad, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2010.

[A1] Silver Medal, National Mathematics Olympiad, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2010.

[F10] Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame, IN, USA, 2021.

[F9] Student Travel Award, American Control Conference, 2021.

·      For the paper: Shirantha Welikala and Christos G. Cassandras. Event-Driven Receding Horizon Control for Distributed Estimation in Network Systems. In Proc. of American Control Conf., pages 1559–1564, 2021. [IEEExplore]

[F8] Student Travel Award, Conference on Decision and Control, 2021.

·      For the paper: Shirantha Welikala and Christos G. Cassandras. Event-Driven Receding Horizon Control of Energy-Aware Dynamic Agents for Distributed Persistent Monitoring. In Proc. of 60th IEEE Conf. on Decision and Control, pages 1898–1904, 2021. [IEEExplore]

[F7] Student Travel Award, American Control Conference, 2020.

·      For the paper: Shirantha Welikala and Christos G. Cassandras. Distributed Non-Convex Optimization of Multi-agent Systems Using Boosting Functions to Escape Local Optima. In Proc. of American Control Conf., pages 2723–2728, 2020. [IEEExplore]

[F6] Student Travel Award, Conference on Decision and Control, 2020.

·      For the paper: Shirantha Welikala and Christos G. Cassandras. Event-Driven Receding Horizon Control For Distributed Persistent Monitoring on Graphs. In Proc. of 59th IEEE Conf. on Decision and Control, pages 92–97, 2020. [IEEExplore]

[F5] Dean's Fellowship, College of Engineering, Boston University, MA, USA, 2017.

[F4] NSF Research Studentship, National Science Foundation, Sri Lanka, 2017.

[F3] PUAA-Vic Scholarship, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2014.

[F2] PUAA-UK Scholarship, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2012.

[F1] Mahapola Merit Scholarship, Government of Sri Lanka, 2011.