Tilak Dias’ academic career began when he joined the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, as an Assistant Lecturer in Knitting Technology after obtaining a ‘Diplom-Ingenieur’ degree in Textile Engineering with Summa Cum Laude from the Technische Universität in Dresden in 1981.  In 1988 he obtained a ‘Dr.-Ingenieur’ also in Textile Engineering with Magna Cum Laude from the Universität Stuttgart.

World class research

After serving the University of Moratuwa for more than a decade, Tilak joined the Department of Textiles at UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, now the University of Manchester) in 1992, with the vision of carrying out world class research with experienced technologists and researchers working at the cutting edge of knitting system research.

In the early years of his tenure at UMIST Tilak focused his research in the area of quality control and assurance of the knitting process; his PhD research at the Institut fὕr Textil- und Verfahrenstechnik (ITV) Denkendorf was the impetus for this line of research which resulted in the development of microprocessor based intelligent yarn delivery systems to control the stitch length of fabrics produced on computerised flat-bed knitting machines and circular knitting machines with a very high degree of precision.

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