Graduate Students

Chamathka Thilakarathna

Chamathka Thilakarathna is a thesis-based master's research student at the GIG-Cities  Lab. Originally from Sri Lanka, she earned her bachelor's degree in Statistics and Operations Research with distinction from the University of Peradeniya. Her current research utilizes spatial data analytics to investigate how climate change impacts crime patterns in prairie cities across Canada. Her broader research interests include big data analytics, spatial modelling and statistics, GeoAI, and machine learning.

Gil Armand Aluning

Gil Armand Aluning is a MES student in the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan, supervised by Dr. Varuni Jayasooriya. He holds a B.A. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Alberta, and worked as a Policy Analyst at Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada. His research examines pedestrian accessibility among older women in Saskatoon, with a focus on income-related disparities in walking access. His broader research interests include spatial accessibility modelling, geospatial data analytics, age-friendly planning, and social equity in urban environments.

Srimani Rojitha Hettikankanama

Srimani Rojitha Hettikankanama is a PhD candidate at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, and a visiting research student at the GIG-Cities Lab. Her current research focuses on developing a multi-source geospatial framework to quantify the cooling effects of blue-green infrastructure on intra-urban heat dynamics, with a comparative focus on Saskatoon, Canada, and Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her broader research interests include remote sensing, GIS, urban climate analytics, GeoAI, and climate-resilient urban planning. She holds a Master’s degree in GIS and Remote Sensing from the University of Peradeniya and a BSc (Hons) in Surveying Sciences, specialising in Remote Sensing, from Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, where she received the Gold Medal for Best Student of the Faculty in 2024. She also serves as a reviewer for Urban Climate and has professional experience as a Geospatial Surveyor.

Šárka Valsov

Šárka Valsová, a visiting research student at the GIG-Cities Lab, from the Czech Republic, is completing her master's studies at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. Additionally, she participated in a study exchange program focusing on Landscape Architecture and Smart Urban Design at the University of Naples Federico II. Šárka is currently using spatial data analytics to study the changes in biodiversity caused by urban sprawl in the city of Saskatoon over the past three decades. Her research interests span wetlands, biodiversity, urban biodiversity, landscape planning and management, and land use and land cover changes.