Rate My Professor Shanelle Tennekoon

Shanelle Tennekoon is a PhD candidate in the School of Electrical Engineering, Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Curtin University, Australia. She earned her B.Sc. (Honours) degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT), Sri Lanka, in 2023. Following her undergraduate studies, she worked as an Assistant Lecturer in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department at SLIIT. Her doctoral research, co-supervised by Professor Iain Murray and Dr. Nimsiri Abhayasinghe, centers on assistive technology, specifically AI-powered systems for semi-autonomous wheelchairs aimed at promoting safer independence for people with low vision. This involves advanced applications of machine learning, computer vision, and AI models to tackle real-world navigation challenges such as doorway alignment, depth estimation, object detection, and user preferences among wheelchair users in Australia.

Tennekoon's research has resulted in multiple publications in high-impact Q1 journals, including 'Navigation preferences and challenges of wheelchair users in Australia: implications for autonomous wheelchair design' (2026), 'Advancing Object Detection: A Narrative Review of Evolving Techniques and Their Navigation Applications' (2025, IEEE Access), and 'A Context-Aware Doorway Alignment System with Depth Estimation for Assistive Wheelchairs' (2025). Her work has accumulated 14 citations on Google Scholar, reflecting early influence in the fields of assistive robotics and computer vision for mobility aids. She has demonstrated exceptional communication skills by winning first place in the Curtin University Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition in 2025, earning a spot in the Asia-Pacific 3MT semi-finals. Additionally, she received the Best Presentation Award at the inaugural Curtin Electrical Engineering, Computing and Mathematical Sciences HDR symposium and served as a guest speaker at SLIIT's Dean's List Award Ceremony 2025.