Rate My Professor Rukshan Athauda

Dr Rukshan Athauda is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia, within the College of Engineering, Science and Environment. He earned his PhD, Master of Science, and Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science from Florida International University in the USA, complemented by a Graduate Certificate in the Practice of Tertiary Teaching from the University of Newcastle. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a Software Design Engineer/Test on the SQL Server team at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington, USA, from 2000 to 2001. He previously served as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information Technology at the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology from 2002 to 2006. Athauda joined the University of Newcastle in November 2006 as a Lecturer in IT in the School of Design, Communication and IT, later becoming Senior Lecturer and holding positions in the School of Design, Communication and IT until 2016, School of Electrical Engineering and Computing from 2017 to 2022, and currently in the School of Computer and Information Sciences.

Athauda's research focuses on database systems including integration and data analysis, educational technology and technology-enhanced learning such as virtual labs and learning analytics, computer systems security and trust with emphasis on permission configurations and decentralised trust, cloud computing featuring task scheduling in fog-cloud environments, and collaborative systems in music post-production including DAW interoperability. He has co-authored over 75 publications, such as the book Innovation in Music: Cultures and Contexts (2024), "Come together, right now…": Making remote multiparty in-the-box audio mixing a reality (2024), Technical Framework to Ensure Data Subject’s Rights in GDPR: A Conceptual Design (2025), and Data mining applications: Promise and challenges (2009). Notable awards include the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment's Collaboration Award for 2019 for the UON Cyber Labs team and the Faculty Staff Teaching and Learning Award 2009. He has presented as Plenary Speaker at ICAPS 2021 and Keynote at SLAAI 2010, and serves as Program Convenor for Bachelor of Computer Science (Jan 2025-present), Member of the School's Teaching and Learning Committee (Sep 2021-present), and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Computer and Information Technology.