Anthony Ariyanayagam

Dr Anthony Ariyanayagam is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. He is a DECRA Fellow and part of the QUT Wind and Fire Engineering Lab, focusing on Structural Fire Engineering and Bushfire-resistant building solutions. His work includes developing fire-resistant lightweight wall systems and enhancing bushfire-safe room designs through material and thermal studies, numerical modeling, and full-scale fire tests.

Anthony holds a PhD in Structural Engineering from QUT (2013) and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (First Class Honours) from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka (2006). His research interests span real building fire performances, bushfire-resistant structural members, and thermal properties of wall linings such as gypsum plasterboards and magnesium oxide boards. He also specializes in structural and thermal finite element modeling under fire conditions.

His team, the Wind and Fire Engineering Lab, includes 12 Higher Degree Research students and is led by Prof. Mahen Mahendran. Anthony has received prestigious awards, including the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) in 2017 and Vice Chancellor’s Performance Awards in 2014 and 2017. He is a member of Engineers Australia and the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS).

Anthony teaches subjects like Design of Steel Structures (EGB 376) and supervises undergraduate thesis projects. His technical expertise includes finite element analysis software (ABAQUS, SAFIR) and structural design tools (SAP2000, ETABS). He actively contributes to conferences and publishes extensively on fire engineering and bushfire resilience.