As one of SFU's most outstanding graduate students from the School of Engineering Science, Dr. Herath Gedara Chinthaka Pathum Dinesh is recognized with the Governor General’s Gold Medal. On behalf of SFU, we congratulate Dr. Dinesh on his outstanding achievements.

By Sarah Close-Humayun

Dr. Dinesh’s doctoral thesis, “Graph Signal Processing for 3D Point Cloud Sampling and Restoration” examined graph signal processing in which he proposed several algorithms to enhance the quality of 3D models generated from 3D scanners. This research has many practical applications in the autonomous driving and virtual reality spheres.

Dr. Dinesh has been the recipient of many honours and awards such as the Lang Wong Memorial Scholarship, the Kaiser Foundation Graduate Scholarship, the Clark, Wilson Graduate Scholarship, the Helmut & Hugo Eppich Family Graduate Scholarship, the SFU President's PhD Scholarship, and the SFU Graduate Fellowship.

Of his research, Dr. Dinesh’s PhD Supervisor, Dr. Ivan Bajić in SFU’s School of Engineering Science said that he is “at the beginning of what I believe will be an outstanding research career.”

Of the award and his time at SFU, Dr. Dinesh says “I am incredibly honored and excited to have been recognized with this most prestigious award that students in Canadian universities can receive. I was fortunate enough to have Dr. Ivan Bajić as my PhD supervisor, and I would like to thank him for allowing the freedom to explore my research interests with continual understanding, constructive criticisms, and intellectual support. His vast experience and innovative insight made this all possible.”

Dr. Dinesh is a Research Scientist in SFU’s School of Engineering Science where he continues his research in graph signal processing-based 3D point cloud sampling and video super-resolution in a joint project with York University.