Apsara Abeysiriwardhane has over ten years of experience as a naval architect and a university lecturer. She worked for Aries Marine LLC, which is one of the largest ship design firms with the headquarters in the United Arab Emirates and branches all over the world. In 2012 she joined as a lecturer at the General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Sri Lanka and worked until she started her PhD at the Australian Maritime College in 2014. Her PhD research was on Shaping Ship for People: Including Human Factors into Ship Design, which was completed in 2017.