Rate My Professor Shanaka Kristombu Baduge

Dr. Shanaka Kristombu Baduge is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, School of Engineering, at RMIT University, City Campus, Melbourne. He obtained his PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2016. Prior to his current role, he was a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne from 2017 to 2025, and served as the manager of the ARC Research Centre for Advanced Manufacturing of Prefabricated Housing. His research focuses on cryogenic material testing below 20 K for liquid hydrogen and liquid natural gas storage and transportation infrastructure, hydrogen energy infrastructure, multi-scale modeling, ultra-high-performance and low-carbon concrete, prefabricated buildings, and AI vision in construction. He has designed and tested cryogenic infrastructure components and obtained funding to develop a custom-built liquid helium-free cryostat for testing materials essential to clean energy applications.

Dr. Baduge has received numerous awards, including the Sir Winston Churchill Fellowship for Design and Construction of Future Hydrogen Energy Infrastructure from the Sir Winston Churchill Trust, the Graduate Research Supervisor of the Year Award from the University of Melbourne's Department of Infrastructure Engineering in 2023, the Post-Doctoral Researcher of the Year Award in 2022, the HIA-CSR Hunter Housing and Kitchen & Bathroom Award for Product Innovation in 2022, and the Victoria Award for Excellence for Technology and Innovation from the Concrete Institute of Australia in 2019 for advancing high-performance concrete applications. Key publications include his book Multiscale Modeling of Concrete published by Woodhead Publishing in 2025, and peer-reviewed papers such as Artificial intelligence and smart vision for building and construction 4.0: Machine and deep learning methods and applications (Automation in Construction, 2022), Mesoscale modelling of concrete—a review of geometry generation, placing algorithms, constitutive relations and applications (Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 2020), and Improving performance of additive manufactured (3D printed) concrete: A review on material mix design, processing, interlayer bonding, and reinforcing methods (Structures, 2021). He is the inventor of a novel void former system made from recycled plastics, commercialized by the Australian Reinforcement Company, enhancing sustainable construction practices.