Dr. Dinusha Vatsalan

Dr. Dinusha Vatsalan

Senior Lecturer Higher Grade, NORTHERN UNI

Faculty of Engineering | IT

Career Summary

  • NORTHERN UNI, Jaffna, Sri Lanka – Senior Lecturer in IT (Higher Grade), Aug 2025 – Present
  • Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia – Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security, May 2022 – Aug 2025
  • Data61, CSIRO, Sydney, Australia – Research Scientist, Apr 2017 – May 2022
  • The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia – Research Fellow, Oct 2014 – Apr 2017
  • The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia – Research Assistant, Feb 2012 – May 2012; Sep 2013 – Nov 2013
  • The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia – Tutor, Feb 2013 – Jun 2013
  • University of Colombo School of Computing, Colombo, Sri Lanka – Instructor, Nov 2009 – Nov 2010
  • Aeturnum Lanka Pvt. Ltd, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka – Trainee Software Engineer, Feb 2008 – Aug 2008


   

Academic Qualifications​

Academic Qualifications
  • PhD in Computer Science – The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, Jan 2011 – Oct 2014
  • Research topic: Scalable and Approximate Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage
  • Supervisors: Prof Peter Christen, A/Prof Vassilios S Verykios, and Dr Lexing Xie
  • Examiners: Prof Rainer Schnell, A/Prof Brad Malin, Prof Jiuyong Li
  • Bachelor of Science in Information and Communication Technology (Hons) – University of Colombo School of Computing, Colombo, Sri Lanka May 2005 – Aug 2009
  • First class; GPA of 3.76 (out of 4.0); Rank 1
Honors and Awards
  • Award for Inter-School Collaboration
    February 2024 – Faculty of Science and Engineering Excellence (FSE) Award, Macquarie University
  • Macquarie University FSE Travel Award
    October 2022
  • Ruby Payne-Scott Award by CSIRO
    June 2019 – Prestigious career development award
  • Women in Science Career Award
    by Data61, CSIRO July 2018 – Competitive annual award by the SCS Program
  • Data Linkage and Anonymisation Programme Participant
    September 2016 – Funded by the University of Cambridge (~$5,500)
  • ANU Early Career Researcher Travel Award, May 2016
  • Investigator and Mentor
    – PriMedLink Project April 2016 – Awarded by Google Summer of Code 2016
  • Co-Investigator
    – Privacy and Semantics for Record Linkage November 2015 – Awarded by the Australia–Germany Joint Research Cooperation Scheme
  • Recognition of Women in Data Mining Citation
    December 2011 – Awarded by the AusDM 2011 Conference
  • Endeavour Postgraduate Research Award
    January 2011 – Awarded by the Australian Government (DEEWR)
  • NBQSA 2010 Silver Award – National Best Quality Software Awards
    November 2010 – For the undergraduate research project (eHealth Track)
  • Manthan Award South Asia 2009 – South Asia’s Best e-Content
    December 2009 – For the undergraduate research project (eHealth Category)
  • eIndia 2009 Speaker Award – eHealth Track
    August 2009

Research Interests & Memberships

Interests

Privacy-preserving technologies for data matching, data mining, record linkage, data sharing, and machine learning, privacy risk quantification, attacks and defenses for machine learning/AI models

Memberships

Ongoing Research

Publications

My Publications

Journal Articles:

1. Trusted data sharing for mineral exploration and mining tenements. Ding, M., Vatsalan, D., Gonzalez-Alvarez, I., M’rabet, S., Tyler, P., & Klump, J. (2024). Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 267, 107580.

2. Privacy-preserving deep learning based record linkage. T. Ranbaduge, Vatsalan, D., and Ding, M. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 2023 –
https://doi.org/10.1109/TKDE.2023.3342757

3. Local differentially private fuzzy counting in stream data using probabilistic data structures. Vatsalan, D., Bhaskar, R., and Kaafar, M.A. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 2022 – https://doi.org/10.1109/TKDE.2022.3198478

4. Fairness and cost constrained privacy-aware record linkage. Wu, N., Vatsalan, D., Verma, S., and Kaafar, M.A. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 17, 2022, pp.2644-2656 – https://doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2022.3191492

5. Privacy risk quantification in education data using Markov model. Vatsalan, D., Rakotoarivelo, T., Bhaskar, R., Tyler, P., and Ladjal, D. British Journal of Educational Technology, 53(4), 2022, pp.804-821 – https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13223

6. Modern Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage Techniques: An Overview. Aris Gkoulalas-Divanis, Dinusha Vatsalan, Dimitrios Karapiperis, Murat Kantarcioglu. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 2021 – https://doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2021.3114026

7. Privacy-Preserving Schemes for Safeguarding Heterogeneous Data Sources in Cyber-Physical Systems. Marwa Keshk, Benjamin Turnbull, Elena Sitnikova, Dinusha Vatsalan, Nour Moustafa. IEEE Access, 2021 – https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3069737

8. P4Mobi: A Probabilistic Privacy-Preserving Framework for Publishing Mobility Datasets. Qing Yang, Yiran Shen, Dinusha Vatsalan, Jianpei Zhang, Mohamed Ali Kaafar, Wen Hu. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 2020 – https://doi.org/10.1109/TVT.2020.2994157

9. Sequence Data Matching and Beyond: New Privacy-preserving Primitives based on Bloom Filters. Wanli Xue, Dinusha Vatsalan, Wen Hu, Aruna Seneviratne. IEEE TIFS, 2020 – https://doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2020.2980835

10. A privacy-preserving-framework-based blockchain and deep learning for protecting smart power networks. Marwa Keshk, Benjamin Turnbull, Nour Moustafa, Dinusha Vatsalan, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 2019 – https://doi.org/10.1109/TII.2019.2957140

11. Precise and Fast Cryptanalysis for Bloom Filter Based Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage. Peter Christen, Thilina Ranbaduge, Dinusha Vatsalan, and Rainer Schnell. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), 2018 –
https://doi.org/10.1109/TKDE.2018.2874004

12. A Taxonomy of Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage Techniques. Dinusha Vatsalan, Peter Christen, and Vassillios S. Verykios. Journal of Information Systems (Elsevier), 38(6), 2013 (IF: 4.71) –
(One of the most cited Information Systems articles)

Book chapters:

13. Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage. Dinusha Vatsalan, Dimitrios Karapiperis, Vassilios S. Verykios. Springer Encyclopedia of Big Data Technologies, 2019 –
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63962-8_17-2

14. Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage for Big Data. Dinusha Vatsalan, Ziad Sehili, Peter Christen, and Erhard Rahm. Handbook of Big Data Technologies, Springer, 2016 – https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49340-4_25

15. Advanced Record Linkage Methods and Privacy Aspects for Population Reconstruction – A Survey and Case Studies. Peter Christen, Dinusha Vatsalan, and Zhichun Fu. Population Reconstruction, Springer, August 2015 –
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19884-2_5

Book chapters:

16. Membership Inference Attack Vulnerabilities of Record Linkage Models. Piyumi Seneviratne, Dinusha Vatsalan, and Dali Kaafar. ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), November 2025.

17. Do It to Know It: Reshaping the Privacy Mindset of Computer Science Undergraduates. Boteju, M., Lottridge, D., Ranbaduge, T., Vatsalan, D., and Ding, N. Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), 2025.

18. Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage for Cardinality Counting. Wu, N., Vatsalan, D., Kaafar, M.A., and Ramesh, S.K., 2023. AsiaCCS, 2023 – https://doi.org/10.1145/3579856.3590338

19. Privacy Preserving Text Data Encoding and Topic Modelling. Dinusha Vatsalan, Raghav Bhaskar, Aris Gkoulalas-Divanis, and Dimitrios Karapiperis. IEEE Big Data, 2021 – https://doi.org/10.1109/BigData52589.2021.9671552

20. Feature-Based Adversarial Attacks Against Machine Learnt Mobile Malware Detectors. Maryam Shahpasand, Leonard Hamey, Mohamed Ali Kaafar, Dinusha Vatsalan, International Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (ITNAC), 2020 – (Won best student paper award) –
https://doi.org/10.1109/ITNAC50341.2020.9315144

21. Incognito: A Method for Obfuscating Web Data. Rahat Masood, Dinusha Vatsalan, Muhammad Ikram, and Mohamed Ali Kaafar. WWW, Lyon, France, April 2018 – https://doi.org/10.1145/3178876.3186093

22. MERLIN–A Tool for Multi-party Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage. Thilina Ranbaduge, Dinusha Vatsalan, Peter Christen. IEEE ICDM, Atlantic City, NJ, USA, 2015 – https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDMW.2015.101

23. Efficient Entity Resolution with Adaptive and Interactive Training Data Selection. Peter Christen, Dinusha Vatsalan, Qing Wang, IEEE ICDM, Atlantic City, NJ, USA, 2015 – https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDM.2015.63

24. Large-scale Multi-party Counting Set Intersection Using a Space Efficient Global Synopsis. Karapiperis, D., Vatsalan, D., Verykios, V.S., and Christen, P., 2015, April. In International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (pp. 329-345). Cham: Springer International Publishing – https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18123-3_20

25. Flexible and Extensible Generation and Corruption of Personal Data. Christen, P. and Vatsalan, D., 2013, October. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Information & Knowledge Management (CIKM), San Francisco, USA (pp. 1165-1168) – https://doi.org/10.1145/2505515.2507815

Founder and Chairman

Introducing the visionary entrepreneur, Mr. Indy Pathmanadan, affectionately known as Mr. Indy, a driving force in the Bath Furniture and Modular Kitchen industries. With over 30 years of expertise, Mr.Indy’s journey is one of extraordinary accomplishments and relentless pursuit of excellence.

A graduate in engineering from the prestigious University of Waterloo, Ontario, Mr. Indy’s entrepreneurial journey began as a Coop student in his Canadian garage. From humble beginnings, he transformed MagickWoods into a global powerhouse with operations spanning across North America and Asia. Today, MagickWoods stands tall with an impressive presence in renowned retailers such as Home Depot, Lowes, and Menards. Mr. Indy’s bold vision includes establishing a strong domestic presence in the USA, facilitating the transformation from China to Aurora. His innovative approach involves forging exclusive partnerships with retailers, creating bespoke brands tailored to their discerning customer base.

With an unwavering commitment to delivering unparalleled quality, Mr. Indy is a firm believer in the digital economy. His passion for enhancing the customer experience led him to pioneer the use of cuttingedge 3D and augmented reality technologies in kitchen design, revolutionising the industry. Demonstrating his forward-thinking mindset, Mr. Indy recently unveiled Magickhome.com, an exceptional ecommerce platform that offers direct-to-consumer digital sales channels, further expanding his reach and impact. Notably, he holds a patent for his groundbreaking invention, the Bath weighing scale product, exemplifying his dedication to innovation.

Mr. Indy’s exceptional contributions have earned him a plethora of accolades. From prestigious design awards for his innovative creations at Bath Furniture to receiving the esteemed Young Entrepreneur Award from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, his outstanding achievements have been recognised on numerous occasions. Additionally, his remarkable export performance and job creation efforts have garnered accolades from the Government of India, solidifying his reputation as an industry trailblazer. Beyond his entrepreneurial endeavours, Mr. Indy actively engages in social causes close to his heart. As the co-founder of CanTYD, a non-profit organisation focused on youth development in Canada, he channels his passion for empowering the younger generation. Furthermore, he dedicated four years of his life to serving on the Southeast Asian Consultative Committee of the Metropolitan Toronto Police, striving to create a safer community for all.

As a proud parent of three children, Mr. Indy finds solace in the embrace of nature. Whether it’s the thrill of running, the serenity of hiking, the pursuit of adventure through hunting, or the freedom of cycling amidst the majestic Rocky Mountains, he cherishes the moments that rejuvenate his spirit. Mr. Indrakumar Pathmanadan, the epitome of entrepreneurial brilliance, continues to redefine industry standards through his remarkable achievements. Join us at our university as we draw inspiration from Mr.Indy’s journey, fostering a culture of innovation, excellence, and unwavering determination.

Founder and Chairman

Introducing the visionary entrepreneur, Mr. Indy Pathmanadan, affectionately known as Mr. Indy, a driving force in the Bath Furniture and Modular Kitchen industries. With over 30 years of expertise, Mr.Indy’s journey is one of extraordinary accomplishments and relentless pursuit of excellence.

A graduate in engineering from the prestigious University of Waterloo, Ontario, Mr. Indy’s entrepreneurial journey began as a Coop student in his Canadian garage. From humble beginnings, he transformed MagickWoods into a global powerhouse with operations spanning across North America and Asia. Today, MagickWoods stands tall with an impressive presence in renowned retailers such as Home Depot, Lowes, and Menards. Mr. Indy’s bold vision includes establishing a strong domestic presence in the USA, facilitating the transformation from China to Aurora. His innovative approach involves forging exclusive partnerships with retailers, creating bespoke brands tailored to their discerning customer base.

With an unwavering commitment to delivering unparalleled quality, Mr. Indy is a firm believer in the digital economy. His passion for enhancing the customer experience led him to pioneer the use of cuttingedge 3D and augmented reality technologies in kitchen design, revolutionising the industry. Demonstrating his forward-thinking mindset, Mr. Indy recently unveiled Magickhome.com, an exceptional ecommerce platform that offers direct-to-consumer digital sales channels, further expanding his reach and impact. Notably, he holds a patent for his groundbreaking invention, the Bath weighing scale product, exemplifying his dedication to innovation.

Mr. Indy’s exceptional contributions have earned him a plethora of accolades. From prestigious design awards for his innovative creations at Bath Furniture to receiving the esteemed Young Entrepreneur Award from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, his outstanding achievements have been recognised on numerous occasions. Additionally, his remarkable export performance and job creation efforts have garnered accolades from the Government of India, solidifying his reputation as an industry trailblazer. Beyond his entrepreneurial endeavours, Mr. Indy actively engages in social causes close to his heart. As the co-founder of CanTYD, a non-profit organisation focused on youth development in Canada, he channels his passion for empowering the younger generation. Furthermore, he dedicated four years of his life to serving on the Southeast Asian Consultative Committee of the Metropolitan Toronto Police, striving to create a safer community for all.

As a proud parent of three children, Mr. Indy finds solace in the embrace of nature. Whether it’s the thrill of running, the serenity of hiking, the pursuit of adventure through hunting, or the freedom of cycling amidst the majestic Rocky Mountains, he cherishes the moments that rejuvenate his spirit. Mr. Indrakumar Pathmanadan, the epitome of entrepreneurial brilliance, continues to redefine industry standards through his remarkable achievements. Join us at our university as we draw inspiration from Mr.Indy’s journey, fostering a culture of innovation, excellence, and unwavering determination.