Dr. R. Tharmarasa (Thamas)

Associate Professor

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
ITB-A211
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4K1
Canada

Tel: + 1 (905) 525 9140 ext. 24171
Fax: + 1 (905) 521-2922
Email: thamas@mcmaster.ca

Education

Ph.D., McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada (June 2008)
M.A.Sc., McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada (June 2004)
B.Sc.Eng., University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka (May 2002)

Professional Experience

Research Associate, 01/2010 - 08/2019, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
Sessional Faculty, 04/2013 - 04/2019, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
Postdoctoral Fellow, 01/2008 - 12/2009, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
Researcher, 06/2008 - 08/2008, DRS Technologies Canada Limited, Ottawa, Canada
Research Assistant, 09/2002 - 12/2007, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
Teaching Assistant, 09/2004 - 12/2007, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
Teaching Assistant, 06/2001 - 06/2002, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Professional Activities

Associate Editor, Elsevier Signal Processing, since 2022
Publication Co-Chair, International Conference on Control, Automation and Information Sciences, November 2026
Technical Co-Chair, International Conference on Control, Automation and Information Sciences, October 2025
Technical Co-Chair, International Conference on Control, Automation and Information Sciences, November 2024
Guest Editor, Special Issue on "Advances in Angle-Only Filtering and Tracking in Two and Three Dimensions", Sensors, 2021-2023
Tracking Co-Chair, Canadian Tracking and Fusion Group (CTFG) Workshop, Workshop, October 2022
General Co-Chair, Canadian Tracking and Fusion Group (CTFG) Workshop, Workshop, January 2021
Special Sessions/Panels Co-Chair, 22nd International Conference on Information Fusion, July 2019
Tracking Co-Chair, Canadian Tracking and Fusion Group (CTFG) Workshop, Workshop, October 2018
Tracking Co-Chair, Canadian Tracking and Fusion Group (CTFG) Workshop, Workshop, November 2017

Research

Research Interests

Target Tracking
Resource Management
Multisensor Fusion
Performance Prediction/Evaluation
Situation Assessment
Classification
Radar Signal Processing
Estimation
Video Tracking
Non-linear Filtering
Quantum Sensing
Artificial Intelligence

Publications

Please see the list of publications.

Teaching

Graduate Courses

Multitarget Tracking and Multisensor Information Fusion

2025/26 Term II - ECE 767 Tracking and Sensor Information Fusion
2024/25 Term II - ECE 767 Tracking and Sensor Information Fusion
2023/24 Term II - ECE 767 Tracking and Sensor Information Fusion
2022/23 Term II - ECE 767 Tracking and Sensor Information Fusion
2021/22 Term II - ECE 767 Tracking and Sensor Information Fusion
2020/21 Term II - ECE 767 Tracking and Sensor Information Fusion
2019/20 Term I - ECE 767 Tracking and Sensor Information Fusion
2018/19 Term II - ECE 767 Tracking and Sensor Information Fusion
2017/18 Term II - ECE 767 Multitarget Tracking and Multisensor Information Fusion
2016/17 Term II - ECE 767 Multitarget Tracking and Multisensor Information Fusion
2015/16 Term II - ECE 767 Tracking and Sensor Information Fusion
2014/15 Term II - ECE 767 Multitarget Tracking and Multisensor Information Fusion
2013/14 Term II - ECE 767 Multitarget Tracking and Multisensor Information Fusion
2012/13 Term II - ECE 767 Multitarget Tracking and Multisensor Information Fusion

Radar Systems

2018/19 Term I - ECE 737 Radar Systems
2017/18 Term I - ECE 737 Radar Systems
2016/17 Term I - ECE 768 Radar Systems

Multimodal Video Tracking and Fusion

2017/18 Term I - ECE 769 Multimodal Video Tracking and Fusion

Undergraduate Courses

Digital Signal Processing

2026/27 Term I - COMPENG 4TL4/ECE 6TL4 Digital Signal Processing - course website on Avenue to Learn
2025/26 Term I - COMPENG 4TL4/ECE 6TL4 Digital Signal Processing
2024/25 Term I - COMPENG 4TL4/ECE 6TL4 Digital Signal Processing
2023/24 Term I - COMPENG 4TL4/ECE 6TL4 Digital Signal Processing
2022/23 Term I - COMPENG 4TL4/ECE 6TL4 Digital Signal Processing
2021/22 Term I - COMPENG 4TL4/ECE 6TL4 Digital Signal Processing
2020/21 Term I - COMPENG 4TL4/ECE 6TL4 Digital Signal Processing

Data Structure and Algorithms

2025/26 Term II - COMPENG 2SI3 Data Structures and Algorithms
2024/25 Term II - COMPENG 2SI3 Data Structures and Algorithms
2023/24 Term II - COMPENG 2SI3 Data Structures and Algorithms
2022/23 Term II - COMPENG 2SI3 Data Structures and Algorithms
2021/22 Term II - COMPENG 2SI3 Data Structures, Algorithms and Discrete Mathematics
2020/21 Term II - COMPENG 2SI4 Data Structures, Algorithms and Discrete Mathematics
2019/20 Term II - COMPENG 2SI4 Data Structures, Algorithms and Discrete Mathematics

Research Project

2025/26 Term II - ELECENG 4OJ4 Research Project
2025/26 Term I - ELECENG 4OJ4 Research Project
2024/25 Term II - ELECENG 4OJ4 Research Project
2024/25 Term I - COMPENG 4OJ4 Research Project
2023/24 Term II - ELECENG 4OH4 Research Project
2023/24 Term I - ELECENG 4OJ4 Research Project
2022/23 Term II - ELECENG 4OH4 Research Project
2022/23 Term II - ELECENG 4OJ4 Research Project
2022/23 Term II - COMPENG 4OJ4 Research Project
2022/23 Term I - ELECENG 4OJ4 Research Project
2020/21 Term II - ELECENG 4OJ4 Research Project

Team

Estimation, Tracking and Fusion Research Laboratory (ETFLab)
Co-directed with Prof. T. Kirubarajan

Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Aranee Balachandran

Ph.D. Candidates

Ping Li
Shanggeeth Kanagalingam
Zhili Huang
Viet Nguyen Thong (Kevin) Le
Ahmad Emam (co-supervised with Prof. S. Hranilovic)
Arya Rashidinejad Meibodi (co-supervised with Prof. S. Sirouspour)

Former Students/Researchers

Aranee Balachandran, Ph.D., 2025
Dipayan Mitra, Ph.D., 2025
Ming Chen, Ph.D., co-supervised with Prof. T. Kirubarajan, 2024
Abhijit Chatterjee, Ph.D., 2023
Prabhanjan Mannari, Ph.D., co-supervised with Prof. T. Kirubarajan, 2023
Sarojini Vudumu, Ph.D., co-supervised with Prof. T. Kirubarajan, 2023

Saad Nafees, M.A.Sc., 2026
Jing Zeng, M.A.Sc., 2025
Prakhar Garg, M.A.Sc., co-supervised with Prof. T. Kirubarajan, 2021
Weijian Chen, M.A.Sc., co-supervised with Prof. T. Kirubarajan, 2021

Aishwaryaprajna, Visiting Ph.D. student, co-supervised with Prof. T. Kirubarajan, 2020

Dr. Prabhanjan Mannari, Postdoctoral fellow, 2024
Dr. Ming Chen, Postdoctoral fellow, 2024
Dr. Nikhil Sharma, Postdoctoral fellow, 2024
Dr. Ben Liu, Postdoctoral fellow, co-supervised with Prof. T. Kirubarajan, 2019-2021

Noah Jaye, Research student, 2026
Paul Stoica, Research student, co-supervised with Prof. A. Jeremic, 2026
Euan Bohm, Research student, co-supervised with Prof. A. Jeremic, 2026
Rajveer Sandhu, Research student, 2024
Vaibhav Gopalakrishnan, Research student, 2024
Dennis Cao, Research student, 2023
Amna Khan, Research student, 2023
Ahmed Raja, Research student, 2021
Michael Donnison, Research student, 2021
Rana Rauf, Research student, 2021
Veerash Palanichamy, Research student, 2020
Michael Donnison, Research student, 2020
Junbo Huang, Research student, 2020
Mushfiqur Rahman, Research student, 2019