Thrishantha

What do we do when we come home from an official function like a wedding? The first thing I do is to take off the suit and get into something comfortable, and then sit down and relax. Home is all about that feeling of being accepted as who you are without having to dress up or to act a role. I have lived in Boston only for 2 years, but that brief stay with colleagues at Harvard and MIT struck something deep inside me to prove that home can be in multiple places and it can get into us faster than we think.  This time, on my way to ICRA2022 in Philadelphia, I stopped over at Boston to see some friends in person after a long time of isolation during the pandemic. Rather than staying at hotels, I chose to stay with friends. This is Maurice Smith, a Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard University. We were together at Johns Hopkins when I was a postdoc and Maurice was a MD/PhD candidate. Then he gave me a visiting position back in 2006 when things in Sri Lanka was not going well for m...

  වෙසක් දවස හොදය් අරගලය ගැන පුලුල්ව හිතන්න. මා මෙතෙක් කල් අත්දුටු නිවන් මග වැටි වැටි නැගිට නැගිට යන ගමනක්. කවදාවත් කෙලින් පාරෙ පල්ලම් නෑ. ඉතාමත් වැදගත් වනුයේ තමා ඉන්න තැන ගැන අවන්ක සෝදිසියය්.  වෙසක් එකට කූඩු පත්තු කිරීම් වැනි දේ අතිශය ප්‍රියන්කරය. සිත් සැනසීමටද එය ඉවහල් වේ. නමුත් බුදු දහම සැමදා සිතේ තිබිය යුතුය දෙයක්‍. වෙසක් පහන සැමදා සිතේ දැල්විය යුතුය දෙයක්. එය එසේ වනුයේ බුදු සසුනට ඇතුලු වූ සියලු දෙනා උඩින් සරල වුත් සැබෑ වශයෙන් ඉතා ගැබුරු වුත් සිද්ධාන්ත දෙකක් මුලින්ම අවබෝධ කරගැනීමෙනි. පලමු දේනම් මේ වෙලාවේ තමා සහ තමා අත්විදින ලෝකය තම සිතේ මේ මොහොතේ හටගත් මායාකාරී චිත්‍රයක් යය් වැටහීමය (සංයුක්ත නිකාය 12.44, ලෝක සුත්‍ර). දෙවනුව, යම් හේතුන්ගෙන් හටගත් දෙයක් ඇත්ද ඒ සියල්ල හේතු නැතිවීමත් සමග නැතිවේ කියන සිද්ධාන්තයය් (සංයුක්ත නිකාය 12.2, පටිච්ච සමුප්පාද විභංග සුත්‍ර). එනම් තමා සහ තම ලෝකය සමග හටගෙන ඇති වේදනාවන් හටගත් චිත්‍රයේ පරිවර්තන සමග පරිවර්තනය වන බවත්ය.  මෙය මතු පිටින් සරල දෙයක් සේ පෙනී යා හැක. නමුත් ප්‍රායෝගිකව අසහනකාරි අත්දෑකීමක් ආ විට අවබෝදය යම්තාක් ඉවහල් වන නමුදු බොහෝ ව...

  The Celtic Sea hugs the cliffs of Cornwall exposing its secret shades of blue The morning sun flushes Cornwall with a fresh spell of life Poems of ancient miners still rhyme around the chimneys strewn on the gorgeous Cornish hills A lonely seal pup dances in the froth of the playful sea The solitary run to and from the lighthouse invigorates me    Life’s waves are like Cornish hills The crest ahead hides the one behind We climb, rest, and set forth through the mist of the past The next crest’s yawn dwarfs our ego Yet, accomplished, we set forth    

  The summer of 2021 had its own glory and challenges for me. On 6th July 2021 I came to know that I had been promoted to Professor of Robotics at Imperial College London. The feeling that I reached the last official milestone of my academic career was so gratifying. Looking back, the winding road through several universities in Sri Lanka, Japan, USA, and UK has been full of ups and downs. Every time an experiment went wrong, a paper got rejected, or a grant got rejected, the success of my come back pivoted on how I stopped, reflected, and re-adjusted priorities before pushing back. The wins peppered along the way kept reinforcing my belief that struggles are not won alone. There is a society behind every win. Apart from support from family, it has always been the right people I worked with who shaped how I win. Most important among them all are those who stood with me in failure and helped me to reflect and push back. Therefore, the promotion was a great moment ...

  It has been one year since our block of flats in Worcester Park were burnt down in a fire . I thought of writing to make some notes that might be useful to people who buy properties and to those professionals whose signature can decide people’s lives.      (video credit to Richmond House residents) The structure of the four-storey building was mostly made of timber. However, people wanted answers as to why the fire spread from one end of the building to the other end within just about 20 minutes. Residents attended more than 20 meetings with the Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association (MTVHA) that sold us the property and St James Group Ltd of Berkeley Group Holdings that constructed the building. Still there is no clear responsibility taking, though late MD of Berkeley Group Holdings, Mr. Tony Pidgley apologised to the group of residents in a meeting held in November 2019. In his words, “I worked very hard to build this company to what it is to...

I am a Roboticist at Imperial College London with Sri Lankan origin. I am writing this on 9 th June 2020 with so much sadness about the death of George Floyd under police custody in broad daylight symbolising a general pattern of brutality against Black People. I am not generally categorised to be Black, but being South Asian, I may have few things to share with fellow Black academics. I must confess that I learnt about Black history in the past two weeks than I did in my whole life despite having lived in Baltimore when I was at Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore was a vivid example of how African-American communities are victimized from multiple fronts from within and outside their communities. If one walks just 200 meters from where the School of Medicine of Johns Hopkins is located, one could imagine what it would mean to grow up as a child in those neighborhoods. Schools in those areas are traditionally under-funded and going to school is not just waking up, ...

Image courtesy of Moving Images, Moving People! One day in year 2005, Ray visited the University of Moratuwa as the chancellor. I think it was an official meeting to organize an innovations exhibition showcasing the work done by the students. After the meeting, Ray wanted to visit my laboratory located in the Sumanadasa building . I was a bit scared to show it to Ray, because it was full of junk material bought to make field robots. The research lab had no windows. So it was a bit damp and smelly too. He just smiled when I warned him of such possible disappointments. No sooner he entered; he grabbed a chair, sat, and kept looking at the work in progress of a legged robot like a child being mesmerised by a favourite toy. “Why legs? Why not wheels Thrish?” he asked. I knew that he was trying to test me. I said “simply because they have to move on soft terrains in a typical abandoned minefield”. “So you thought about how legs interact with soft soil to its advanta...