Dr Lasitha Piyathilaka is a Lecturer in Mechatronic Engineering at Central Queensland University. He graduated from University of Moratuwa Sri Lanka specialising Electrical engineering in 2005 and received his M.Phil degree specialising robotics in 2011 from the same university. In 2016, he completed his PhD degree specializing in Robotics from the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

Lasitha has a rich blend of industry, teaching and research experience. From 2017 to 2020 he worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), and lead a research team to develop inspection robots for condition assessment of water and sewer pipelines. This project won both the National and NSW Research Innovation Awards presented by the Australian Water Association in 2020. From 2015 to 2017, Lasitha worked as a mechatronics engineer at Swarm Farm Robotics, a robotics company based in QLD that develops a swarm of lightweight agricultural robots for farm operations. He has over 10+ years of teaching experience and previously taught in Mechatronics and Robotics related courses at the University of Technology Sydney and the Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka.