My interdisciplinary background has equipped me with the ability to apply innovative software engineering techniques to tackle complex problems in both chemical and life sciences.

After completing my undergraduate degree with a strong foundation in both chemistry and computer science, I decided to pursue a doctoral degree in computational biochemistry. My thesis work at the University of Connecticut primarily involved coding a new quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) algorithm. Shortly after graduation, I had the opportunity to design and build a machine learning product for automated chemical structure identification in metabolomics.

During my three-year tenure as a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Pharmacy, University of Connecticut, I developed several software products, including MolFind, IIMDB, and DASI. After this experience, I returned to Sri Lanka to join WSO2 as a Senior Technical Lead. At WSO2, I led the development team responsible for creating WSO2 Machine Learner.

From there, I transitioned back to academia at the University of Peradeniya, where I have been working for the past 10 years conducting research in life sciences and machine learning. As a faculty member, I contributed to the development of our institute’s e-learning policy. During my tenure, I also served as an administrator for several Learning Management Systems (LMSs).