Amila
Indika

Computer Engineering Graduate

A little about me

I'm passionate about mathematics, data science, and programming. My other interests include research and teaching. Moreover, I like traveling, meeting new people, and exploring new places to have novel experiences.
I'm also a great chess player.

Experience

Graduate Research Assistant (May 2023 - Present)

I participated in two machine learning research projects. The first project, focused on statistical downscaling for rainfall prediction in Hawaii, aimed to predict rainfall in the Hawaiian islands with high precision using coarse-resolution inputs. The CHANGE-HI National Science Foundation (NSF) grant funded this research. In this project, my contributions included implementing site-specific linear regression and neural network models for rainfall forecasting. I assisted in comparing results with a novel approach incorporating Digital Elevation Maps (DEM) alongside neural networks. I also implemented a Gaussian Process approach (Kriging) as the baseline comparison model.

The second project involved estimating net radiation over the Hawaiian islands in collaboration with MITRE (Virginia). Our goal was to generate detailed and up-to-date estimates of net radiation across the Hawaiian Islands, with a resolution of 250 meters and hourly updates. In this project, I contributed by predicting incoming long-wave radiation during the night using various machine-learning models. This analysis involved examining satellite images and applying simple linear models like linear regression and more complex non-linear models like neural network models.

Graduate Teaching Assistant (August 2022 - May 2023)

I worked as a full-time Graduate Teaching Assistant (TA) at the Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI, USA. I was the TA for ICS 332: Operating Systems and ICS 451: Data Networks for Fall 2022. Then, I worked on ICS 355: Security and Trust I and ICS 332: Operating Systems for Spring 2023. I assist in grading assignments and teaching in these courses.

Lecturer on Contract (August 2021 - July 2021)

I worked as a lecturer on contract at the Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya. The courses I was the Instructor In Charge (IIC) were Computer Communication Networks, Embedded Systems, and Network & Web Application Design. In these, I helped with tutorial classes, student discussions, and lab work. Further, I taught sections in Image Processing and Networking for Electrical Engineering courses.

Temporary Instructor (July 2020 - July 2021)

I worked as a Temporary Instructor (TA) at the Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya. Some courses I assisted with include computer architecture, advanced computer communication networks, and a computing course for first-year students. Further, I was the Instructor in Charge (IIC) of the abovementioned courses. I assisted in quiz and lab preparation, grading of labs, and lab review sessions. Each course averaged roughly 60 students per semester.

Trainee Associate Software Engineer (February 2019 - July 2019)

I worked as a Trainee Associate Software Engineer at Zone24x7 (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Jayawardenepura. I was a member of the Big Data and Data Science team. My projects included a Research & Development (R&D) project named log machine learning and a production project named video machine learning.

In the machine learning R&D project, I collaborated as the lead developer alongside my supervisor (Hansa Perera) to analyze log file data from a prominent retail chain company in the United States. Our objective was to predict errors or critical events before they occurred. I conducted a thorough analysis of the log data. Next, I implemented a topic modeling technique to categorize log events into groups. Subsequently, I identified patterns among these groups. I utilized them to feed sequences of patterns into a neural network for predicting upcoming log events.

In another project, we collected and analyzed video feeds from the same large retail chain company to detect anomaly patterns in the data. My contribution to this project involved the development of data science components, including creating machine learning algorithms tailored to identify anomalies in customer visit counts of stores over a given period.

Research and Publications

Pre-print

Indika, Amila, Nethmal Warusamana, Erantha Welikala, and Sampath Deegalla. "Ensemble Stock Market Prediction using SVM, LSTM, and Linear Regression." (2021). DOI:

10.36227/techrxiv.16626019

Conference Papers

(Best Paper Award) S. Jayasundara, A. Indika and D. Herath, "Interpretable Student Performance Prediction Using Explainable Boosting Machine for Multi-Class Classification," 2022 2nd International Conference on Advanced Research in Computing (ICARC), 2022, pp. 391-396, DOI:

10.1109/ICARC54489.2022.9753867

A Indika, PY Washington, A Peruma, “Performance Comparison of Binary Machine Learning Classifiers in Identifying Code Comment Types: An Exploratory Study,” 2023 IEEE/ACM 2nd International Workshop on Natural Language-Based Software Engineering (NLBSE), pp. 20-23, DOI:

10.48550/arXiv.2303.01035

Conference Papers [Abstract]

N. Warusamana, A. Indika, E. Welikala, S. Deegalla, “Stock Market Prediction using SVM, LSTM, and Linear Regression”, ESCaPe 2020 Project Symposium, pp. 21

https://ESCaPE-2020-Proceedings/

Current Research

Currently, I'm engaged in following research project/s.

  1. I'm working on a research project on secure multi-party computing.
  2. I'm working on a research project on accessibility of mobile applications
  3. I'm working on a research project on statistical downscaling for rainfall prediciton in Hawaii

Education

University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI, USA (2022 - Present)

I'm pursuing an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii (CGPA: 3.96/4.00).


University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya (2015 - 2020)

I graduated as a Bachelor of the Science of Engineering specialized in Computer Engineering with First Class Honours (GPA: 3.85/4.00).


Maliyadeva College, Kurunegala (2012 - 2014)

I attended Maliyadeva College from Grade 12 to Grade 13 for my Advanced Level Education.


Kegalu Vidyalaya, Kegalle (2001 - 2011)

I attended Kegalu Vidyalaya from Grade 1 to Grade 11 during my Ordinary Level Education.


Contact me