Darshika G. Perera, PhD, SMIEEE
Associate Professor
ENGR-222, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering,
University of Colorado Colorado Springs
1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway,
Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA
Tel: 719-255-3404
email: dperera(at)uccs.edu or darshika.perera(at)uccs.edu
websites: https://www.darshikagperera.com/
More information about my research, teaching, and services can be found on the following tabs/links.
Our Research Page is updated with current research projects in January 2023.
Our IEEE Student Branch Activities is moved to a new web page (from my main page) from June 2024.
I received my Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada, and the M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees from Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) and University of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka) respectively, both in Electrical Engineering. I am an Associated Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). I joined the ECE Department as an Assistant Professor in Fall semester of 2014. I got my Tenure and Promotion to Associated Professor at UCCS in June 2021. I am also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria, Canada. My niche areas of research and interests lie in embedded systems, digital design, and reconfigurable computing. Please see my research page for detailed description of my research projects.
Prior to joining UCCS, I worked as the Senior Engineer and Group Leader of Embedded Systems at CMC Microsystems, Canada, and led several collaborative R&D projects in Embedded Systems and Wireless Sensor Networks domains. I am a Senior IEEE member and serve on organizing and program committees for several IEEE/ACM conferences and workshops, and also serve as a reviewer for the IEEE, Springer, and Elsevier journals. Furthermore, I am serving as the Associated Editor for Elsevier Microelectronics Journal (MEJ), Editor for the Elsevier Microprocessors and Microsystems Journal (MICPRO), Editor for the Elsevier IoT Journal , and serving on the VLSI Systems and Application Technical Committee (VSATC) of IEEE Circuits and Systems Society.
In 2024
Another one of my M.Sc. Thesis students, David Abillar, successfully defended his Masters Thesis on 25th April 2024. Title of the Thesis is "An FPGA-Based Linear Kalmann Filter for a Two-Phase Buck Converter Application". (See picture below).
Our journal papers on novel computational models for edge computing is published in the IEEE Access, open access journal (I.F. 3.9). The title is "Composing Efficient Computational Models for Real-Time Processing on Next-Generation Edge-Computing Platforms". This project is funded by NSF. This is with my current PhD student Mokhles Mohsin and former PhD student Dr. Navid Shahrouzi.
I was pleasantly surprised to receive this card from the CEO of ULA (United Launch Alliance). I always consider my students' success as my success, as their teacher and mentor. It is indeed rewarding to see and hear that my students are doing excellent work in the industry. (see more pictures below).
I am so happy to see my first former PhD student (Dr. S. Navid Shahrouzi) joining the academia. Some of my students joining academia, is one of my goals/dreams as a mentor. Navid is indeed exceptional and will be a valuable asset to our department. Welcome aboard Navid!! I am so proud of you. And I wish you all the best in your future endeavors!! .
In 2023
I am delighted to share this wonderful news! I received the "Teacher of the Year - Tenured Award (2022-2023)" from Engineering and Applied Science (EAS) College during the award ceremony in October 2023. I am truly honored to receive this award. I want to thank my ECE Chair for nominating me for this award, my colleagues, and my students for giving me excellent recommendations, and the UCCS community for their continuing support. This award is in recognition for my contributions and my passion for teaching and attracting and mentoring both graduate and undergraduate students. This is indeed rewarding and motivates me to make more contributions to our university. (see more pictures below).
Another one of our journal papers on embedded architectures for battery cell management is published in the IEEE Access, open access journal (I.F. 3.9). The title is "Towards Composing Efficient FPGA-Based Hardware Accelerators for Physics-Based Model Predictive Control Smart Sensor for HEV Battery Cell Management". This is with my former PhD student Dr. Anne Madsen.
Our first journal paper on Neuromorphic computing is published in the "Sensors", MDPI open access journal (I.F. 3.9), under the "Sensing and Imaging" section. The title is "Neuromorphic Sentiment Analysis Using Spiking Neural Networks". This is with my post-doctoral research fellow Raghavendra K. Chunduri.
I am delighted to share this wonderful news!! I have been selected for the "Excellence in Leadership Program (ELP)" for 2023-2024 cohort within the University of Colorado (CU) system, comprising four campuses. I am honored to participate in this program, which will indeed help me to achieve my future academic career goals, while honing my leadership skills. I must thank my colleague Dr. Scott Trimboli for nominating me for this opportunity. We are on UCCS news. (see more pictures below).
Two of our papers are accepted at the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS'23). (1) "A Systolic Array Architecture for SVM Classifier for Machine Learning on Embedded Devices", with my PhD student, Srikanth. (2) "Optimizing Density-Based Ant Colony Stream Clustering Using FPGA-Based Hardware Accelerator", with my MSc student, Jeremy. I was in Monterey, California (in May 2023), to present our papers and to serve as a session chair for two sessions on programmable hardware. It was very nice to meet with many colleagues from CAS society. (See pictures below).
Please take a look at Our Current Research Projects in our research group/lab. I updated this in January 2023.
In 2022
I am delighted to share this wonderful news!! I have been selected as the recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award for 2022 at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). I am truly honored to receive this one-time Prestigious Award. I want to thank my ECE Chair for nominating me for this award, my colleagues and my students for giving me excellent recommendations, Campus Award Committee for selecting me for this award, and the UCCS community for their continuing support. It is indeed rewarding to receive this esteemed award as a recognition for my contributions and my passion for teaching, attracting, and mentoring students. I am looking forward to making more contributions to UCCS in the future. (See pictures below).
In 2021
Ending the Year 2021 with a Bang!! More wonderful news before the year ends!! I received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for my project on "An Efficient and Adaptive Framework for Real-Time Processing on Next-Gen Edge-Computing Platforms" starting from January 2022. This project is built on my embedded/digital systems expertise in several application domains, including data analytics, control systems, cybersecurity, and machine learning. I am delighted to secure funding for this project, since I am very passionate about this area and hoping to make significant contributions in the near future.
I am delighted to share this wonderful news!! I got my Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor in the ECE Department at University of Colorado Colorado Spring (UCCS). It is indeed rewarding to pass this milestone, which will allow me to continue my passion for teaching, doing research, and services. I want to thank the UCCS community, my reviewers, my mentors, colleagues, and collaborators for their continuing support. I want to especially thank my former graduate students (4 PhD and 9 Masters students, thus far), whose excellent performance led to many outstanding publications and successful graduations, which immensely helped my tenure process. I also want to thank my family, who has been supporting and making many compromises to achieve my goals. I am certainly looking forward to making more contributions to UCCS and to my research community, while achieving many more milestones in the future.
Our research on "Highly Adaptive Architectures for Edge Computing" is featured in our UCCS Communique News. Link to this news article.
In 2020
I officially started collaborating with Jump Trading LLC Company, from August 2020.
Another one of my M.Sc. Thesis students, David Abillar, successfully defended his Masters Thesis on 25th April 2024. Title of the Thesis is "An FPGA-Based Linear Kalmann Filter for a Two-Phase Buck Converter Application". (See picture below).
Our last day of "Excellence in Leadership Program (ELP)". We received a certificate of completion. This is a group photo with my UCCS colleagues. I really enjoyed meeting many fellow CU members from all four CU campuses, during the ELP sessions. I also had a chance to meet most of our CU leaderships teams from all four CU campuses. It was my pleasure participating in the ELP program, which enabled me to learn many leadership skills, which I will be utilizing throughout my academic career, as an educator, mentor, researcher, and also as a leader. I am excited to seek more professional/career development opportunities like this, that would help me in the long term. (see more pictures below).
Our visit to CU Denver (University of Colorado Denver), for the Excellence in Leadership Program (ELP) session, on Friday 19th April. This is during our campus walk, with some of our ELP 23-24 cohort members. It was great to see and connect with the CU fellow members from all four campuses. I must thank the ELP organizers for arranging excellent sessions for us at CU Denver. (see more pictures below).
Our visit to CU Boulder (University of Colorado Boulder), for the Excellence in Leadership Program (ELP) session, on 26th Janaury 2024. This is during our campus walk, with some of our ELP 23-24 cohort members. It was great to see and connect with everybody after the winter break. I must thank the ELP organizers for arranging excellent sessions for us at CU Boulder. (see more pictures below).
I was pleasantly surprised to receive this card from the CEO of ULA (United Launch Alliance). It is indeed rewarding to see and hear that my students are doing excellent work in the industry. (see more pictures below).
I am delighted share this wonderful news. I received the Teacher of the Year - Tenured Award 2022-203 at EAS (Engineering and Applied Science) Collage Award Ceremony in October 2023. (See pictures below).
Another one of my M.Sc. Project students, Kevin Young, successfully defended his Masters Thesis on December 2023. Title of the Thesis is "GPS Signal Image Feature Extraction Using Embedded FPGA". (See picture below).
I attended the Retreat for the "Excellence in Leadership Program (ELP)" for 2023-2024 cohort, on 10th and 11th August in Denver. These are the pictures with all the participants from all four campuses within the CU system. I had a wonderful time, and I am looking forward to all the future events. (see pictures below).
I attended the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS'23) in Monterey, California (in May 2023), to present our three papers and to serve as a session chair for two sessions on programmable hardware. It was very nice to meet with many colleagues from CAS society. (See pictures below).
My Outstanding Teacher Award from University of Colorado Colorado Spring (UCCS) in 2022. (See pictures below).
It was my pleasure giving an invited talk during the "Digital Design" session at the International Conference on VLSI Design and Embedded Systems (VLSID'22). I must thank the Conference Organizers for inviting me. Title of my talk is "Composing FPGA-based architectures and techniques for compute and data-intensive applications on embedded platforms". (See picture below).
Another one of my M.Sc. Thesis students, Jeremy Graf, successfully defended his Masters Thesis on 10th March 2022. Title of the Thesis is "Optimizing Density-Based Ant Colony Stream Clustering Using FPGAs". (See picture below).
I was proud to perform the Hooding Ceremony for my PhD student, Dr. Arkan Alkamil, during our UCCS Graduation Ceremony on 17th December 2021. This was the first in-person graduation ceremony that we had after the shutdowns. (See pictures below).
I gave a keynote speech at the IEEE Nordic Circuits and Systems (NorCAS'21) Conference in Oslo, Norway. Title of my talk is “Reconfigurable Hardware Architectures for Edge Computing”, which encompasses most of the embedded and digital systems work that I have been doing in several application domains, including data analytics, control systems, cybersecurity, and machine learning. I am very passionate about this area and hoping to make significant contributions in this area in the near future (See picture below).
Two of my PhD students, Arkan Alkamil and Srikanth Ramadurgam, successfully defended their Dissertations on 5th and 12th February 2021, respectively. Arkan’s Dissertation title is "Dynamic Reconfigurable Architectures to Improve Performance and Scalability of Cryptosystems on Embedded Systems". Srikanth’s Dissertation title is "Optimized Embedded Architectures and Techniques for Machine Learning Algorithms for On-Chip AI Acceleration". Both research projects led to several journal papers and conference papers. More papers to come. They are both excellent students. I am very proud of their accomplishments. Arkan has joined IBM in New York and Srikanth will be joining a major multi-national company soon. Congratulations Arkan and Srikanth!! I wish you all the best in your future endeavors!! (See pictures below).
I was proud to perform the Hooding Ceremony for my second PhD student, Dr. Anne K. Madsen, during our virtual UCCS Graduation Ceremony in December 2020. (See pictures below).
My first female PhD student, Anne K. Madsen, successfully defended her Dissertation today (28th August 2020). Title of the Dissertation is "Optimized Embedded Architectures for Model Predictive Control Algorithms for Battery Cell Management Systems in Electric Vehicles". This research work has led to 3 journal publications and 1 conference publications (2 under review). More papers to come. Anne is indeed an excellent student. She has been working full time and taking care of her family, throughout her PhD journey. I am very proud of her accomplishments. She is currently working at the Air Force Research Lab in Colorado Springs. Congratulations Anne!! Hopefully, we will collaborate in the near future. (See pictures below).
Another one of my M.Sc. Thesis students, Laura Homet Garcia, successfully defended her Masters Thesis on 16th December 2019. Title of the Thesis is "An FPGA-Based Hardware Accelerator for Sequence Alignment by Genetic Algorithm".
I am delighted share this wonderful news. I received the Teacher of the Year Award - Tenure Track 2018-2019 at EAS (Engineering and Applied Science) Collage Award Ceremony in April 2019. Also, My PhD Student (Dr. Navid) received the Outstanding PhD Student Award 2018-2019 at the same Ceremony. (See pictures below).
I was proud to perform the Hooding Ceremony for my first PhD student, Dr. S. Navid Shahrouzi, during our UCCS Graduation Ceremony in December 2018. (See pictures below).
My first PhD student, Seyed Navid Shahrouzi, successfully defended his Dissertation on 14th November 2018. Title of the Dissertation is "Optimized Embedded and Reconfigurable Hardware Architectures and Techniques for Data Mining Applications on Mobile Devices". This research work has led to 3 journal publications and 4 conference publications. Navid is an outstanding student, and I am really proud of his accomplishments. He will be working at the "Cypress Semiconductors" in Colorado Springs soon.
I received my IEEE Senior Membership from October 2018.
I am delighted to share this wonderful news. We won the Best Poster Paper Award at the International Symposium on HEART (Highly Efficient Accelerators and Reconfigurable Technology) 2018 in Toronto, Canada (19th-22nd June). This paper with my MSc Student Mokhles Mohsin is titled "An FPGA-Based Hardware Accelerator for K-Nearest Neighbor Classification for Machine Learning on Mobile Devices". Just came back from Toronto (22nd June), after attending the conference and presenting the paper. This pictures was taken during the Award Ceremony.
Best Poster Paper Award Certifcate .
Came back from Florence, Italy (3rd June), attending the ISCAS'18 conference. I was there to accept my nomination for the VLSI Systems and Application Technical Committee (VSATC) of IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. This was taken during the VSATC committee meeting.
My Master Thesis (Research Option) Student, Mokhles Mohsin, received the "Outstanding MSEE Student Award" for 2017-18, at our EAS Collage Award Ceremony in May 2018. Since Mokhles is out of state, I presented and received the Award on behalf of him.
Demo with my Senior Design Team in May 2018
Demo with my Senior Design Team (All female) in December 2017
One of my students, Mokhles, defended his M.Sc. Thesis (Research Option) in October 2017
Last updated on 1st September 2024