Overview

Professor Harinda Fernando is a Full Professor, researcher, and academic leader specializing in Cybersecurity and Applied Artificial Intelligence, with over 18 years of experience in higher education across Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and Australia. His research focuses on designing secure, intelligent, and trustworthy AI-driven systems that address contemporary challenges in cyber risk, intelligent threat detection, and distributed computing environments.

Professor Fernando currently serves as Cluster Lead of the Information Assurance and Security research cluster at SLIIT and as Program Coordinator for the MSc in IT (Cybersecurity specialization), Faculty of Computing, where he also chairs the Academic Misconduct Investigation Committee. Prior to joining SLIIT, he held senior leadership roles including Head of School and Head of the Cybersecurity and Cloud Computing Research Lab at the Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT). Within the Department of Computer Systems Engineering, he teaches across cybersecurity, machine learning, information assurance, and systems and data security, and develops assessment materials for the postgraduate diploma programme in Cybersecurity Policy.

His research spans AI-enabled cybersecurity, anomaly and intrusion detection, federated and privacy-preserving machine learning, IoT and edge security, deep learning for networked systems, and applied machine learning for socio-technical problems. He has authored more than 45 publications, cited over 125 times on Google Scholar and 87 times on Scopus, and has served as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on multiple funded research projects, including international collaborations with Curtin University, Australia. He has supervised more than 200 undergraduate projects and over 35 postgraduate dissertations (MSc, MPhil).

Professor Fernando serves as a reviewer for multiple Elsevier and other international journals and for 19+ international conferences, as a Technical Program Committee member and Track/Session Chair for major conferences, and as a judge for the National Best Quality Software Award (NBQSA). He holds professional memberships including Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), Senior Member of IEEE, and Member of IET, and is deeply engaged in AI governance, curriculum design, and the responsible adoption of AI in higher education.

Experience

• SLIIT Uni - Sri Lanka
  • 2026 - Current - Professor | Computer Systems Engineering
  • 2026 - Current - Chair | Faculty Academic Misconduct Investigation Committee
  • 2026 - Current - Member | Faculty Bylaws Committee
  • 2024 - Current - Cluster Lead - Information Assurance and Security Research Cluster
  • 2023 - Current - Program Coordinator (MSc - Cybersecurity) | Faculty of Computing
  • 2023 - 2026 - Assistant Professor | Computer Systems Engineering
  • 2022 - 2023 - Senior Lecturer (HG) | Computer Systems Engineering
  • 2022 - 2023 - Program Coordinator (MSc - IS) | Faculty of Computing
  • 2022 - 2023 - Coordinator (CDAP) | Faculty of Computing
• APIIT - Sri Lanka
  • 2021 - 2022 - Head | Cybersecurity and Cloud Computing Research Lab 
  • 2014 - 2022 - Senior Lecturer | School of Computing
  • 2017 - 2022 - Final Year Project Coordinator | School of Computing
  • 2016 - 2019 - Head | School of Computing
  • 2014 - 2016 - Award Coordinator | School of Computing
• Deakin University - Australia
  • 2013 - 2013 - Research Assistant
  • 2008 - 2013 - Sessional Lecturer

• PhD In Computing (2008 - 2012) - Deakin University, Australia
• BBIT (Hons)  (2004 - 2007) - Deakin University, Australia

• Judge of "National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA)" for years 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023
• Recipient of "Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP)" scholarship for PhD
• Inducted into the Golden Key Honor Society
• Placed on Deans List for Undergraduate Degree
• Awarded AINTEC 2024 Travel grant - 2000 USD
• Awarded AINTEC 2025 Travel grant - 1200 USD
• Awarded SLIIT research grants for the years:
  • 2002 - Principal Investigator - 400,000 LKR
  • 2003 - Co-Investigator - 400,000 LKR
  • 2004 - Principle Investigator - 500,000 LKR
  • 2025 - Co-Investigator - 500,000 LKR
  • 2025 - Principle-Investigator - 500,000 LKR
  • 2026 - Co-Investigator - 500,000 LKR
  • 2026 - Co-Investigator - 5000 AUD
  • 2026 - Co-Investigator - 13,000 AUD

• Smart Systems
• Cyber Security
• Information Security
• Computer Networks
• Machine Learning
• Deep Learning

Current Personal Research 

• Deep Learning for Network Attack Detection on Resource Constrainted Edge Devices
• Use of autonomous drones to detect physical faults in high voltage insulators
• Multi Modal AI for wildfire prediction
• A framework for securing teaching LLMs against prompt injection attacks
• Use of UAVs and for intelligent pest detection in agrculture

MPhil Supervision 

• A novel DNA-based quantum-safe encryption algorithm for IoT devices - Deemantha Siriwardena
• Securing Autonomous Vehicle Communications and Privacy: Novel Approaches to V2V Trust - Niranjan Meegammana
• Enhancing the Accuracy and Security of Federated Learning Systems - Kaushalya Rajapakse
• Enhancing Mobile Forensic Analysis of Social Networking Applications on Android Smartphones through Intelligent Data Analytics and Cognitive Computing - Ayesha Wijesooriya
• Cloud Computing Adoption in Sri Lankan Public and Private Hospitals: Evaluating Security, Cost, and Legal Compliance - Indeera Hettiarachchi
• Hybrid and LLM Based IPS for Web Application Security - Praneeth Weerawardana
• A Holistic Approach for LLM Security - Helani Herath
• A Secure Framework for SLM Models Against Jailbreaking and Finetuning Attacks - Thriyashi Silva