MMRL Staff

Dr Elizabeth Taylor heads a multi-disciplinary team consisting of Research Fellows, full-time Research Engineers, Adjunct Research Associates from various institutions in Singapore, and NUS Research Scholars and students. We believe that interaction among cross-disciplinary teams helps to enhance productivity and creativity with biologists, physical scientists and engineers bringing diverse and complementary expertise to problems that are often outside any one traditional academic discipline.

Head Dr Elizabeth Taylor Research Assistant - Suranga  
Research Fellow Dr Paul James Seekings
 
Research Engineer Mr Yeo Kian Peen
Research Engineer Miss Jolyn Tan  
Research Assistant Mr Suranga Nanayakkara  
Research Assistant Miss Petrina Tay  
     
     
     
     
 
Email: tmsscn@nus.edu.sg
       
   

Suranga graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2005 with a 1st class honors degree in Electrical Engineering. He took up the NUS direct PhD programme and joined the Marine Mammal Research Laboratory (MMRL), and later the Arts and Creativity Laboratory , to conduct his research. Currently he is working on Visual and Acoustic signal processing under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Taylor, Assoc. Prof. Lonce Wyse and Assoc. Prof. Ong Sim Heng . Upon submitting his PhD dissertation in August 2009, Suranga joined MMRL as a full-time staff.

Suranga's main area of study is the conversion of sound, especially music, into rich and novel visual displays in real-time such that these displays would enhance live musical performances. It is hoped that this work would be applicable to a wide range of musical activities, including learning to play new instruments, improving synchrony between several instruments, and most importantly to facilitate the enjoyment of hearing-impaired people attending live musical performances. His research work has twice featured in the NUS research gallery. ('Hearing' through sight, New technology to help the deaf enjoy music)

Being a Sri Lankan, Suranga is an avid tea-drinker and easily consumes 7-8 cups of tea a day. Further emphasizing his nationality is his cricket craze. He enjoys watching cricket matches and loves playing the sport even more.