Chehara Pathmanbandu
Chehara completed her PhD researching Privacy in IoT-oriented Smart Buildings, People and Systems.
Her areas of expertise encompass privacy-enhancing technologies and human-centric software engineering attached to smart cities. She also possesses knowledge and skills in data mining, machine learning, nlp and audio processing techniques.
Throughout her PhD journey and experience as a research intern, Chehara has applied and practised many research methods in IT, conducting different research studies including formal modelling, feasibility and simulation, expert interviewing and observational and literature surveying.
Chehara has been investigating how informed consent will help end users change their behaviour in addressing the privacy paradox. As part of this research, she built a reference model and architecture for informed consent management in Smart Spaces, implemented a proof-of-concept prototype for a shared smart workplace and validated the proposed approach with industry professionals and academic researchers. This research work has been recognised as one of the finalists of the Facebook Research Awards 2021 under the PET category.