Speakers

Tharaka is the Director of Gruha Structural Design and a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Infrastructure Engineering of the University of Melbourne. He is currently a Chief Investigator (CI) of the Australian Research Council (ARC) funded Advance Timber Hub. He has previously led many government and industry funded projects for innovation, especially in the areas of prefabricated structural systems and advanced engineered wood composites, while also developing noteworthy collaborations with industry and government organisations both locally and internationally.

He is also a practicing Structural Engineer with a career spanning over 17 years, currently engaging in residential and commercial prefabricated building projects in Australia and overseas. He is a committee member of the Standards Australia’s umbrella code committee BD111 on Prefabricated Buildings as a nominee of Engineers Australia, contributing to the recently published “SA HB 268: 2026 - Prefabricated Building - Glossary of Terms” handbook. He has also served as a working group member for the 2021 issue of the Australian standard AS 5216- Design of Post-Installed and Cast-in Fastenings in Concrete.

As an experienced university educator and senior researcher, Tharaka has served as a lecturer and the subject coordinator for ‘High Rise Structures (CVEN90024)’ while also lecturing in other subjects in structural engineering and engineering management at the University of Melbourne for many years. He is also the principal coordinator of the online ‘Microcert’ short course on the structural design of prefabricated buildings offered to the industry by the University of Melbourne. Tharaka has led many research projects that looked at engineering applications of advanced composite materials especially those made from waste materials.