Hi, my name is
Ashala Senanayake.
I am a researcher and software engineer working at the intersection of applied machine learning and robust engineering, turning ideas into reliable systems that make a real-world impact.
Hi, my name is
I am a researcher and software engineer working at the intersection of applied machine learning and robust engineering, turning ideas into reliable systems that make a real-world impact.
About
An engineer who fell into research and is now based in Kyoto, Japan.
My work sits at the intersection of research, software engineering, and machine learning, with a focus on natural language processing and intelligent systems for real-world impact, including healthcare applications. I am currently pursuing a Master of Engineering at Kyoto University of Advanced Science (KUAS), where my research explores time-aware language modeling and longitudinal analysis of human behavior. With six years of industry experience across financial technology, enterprise software, and educational technology, I design and build scalable systems in production environments. My work has been recognized through peer-reviewed publications and international research awards.
I focus on bridging research and production, turning ideas into reliable, scalable systems while continuously evolving my craft.
Technologies I work with frequently:
What I do
Whether you're hiring a researcher, an engineer, or an AI/ML specialist — here's where I'll fit.
NLP for digital mental health. My MEng thesis models anxiety over time from social-media language, building time-aware, longitudinal pipelines rather than single-post snapshots.
Six years shipping production software: financial market surveillance at LSEG, airline maintenance scheduling at IFS, and full-stack platforms in Japan today.
Deep learning in practice: transformers, contextualised embeddings, prompt engineering and classical ML, applied to messy real-world text and benchmarked against strong baselines.
Research Interests
The problems and questions that drive my research across NLP, machine learning and digital health.
Toolkit
Languages, frameworks, and tools I reach for across research and production.
Experience
Six years across financial technology, enterprise software and educational platforms in production.
Education
Academic foundations across computer science, software engineering and AI research.
Selected Projects
Research systems and engineering projects built from idea to production.
A novel temporal-contextual framework for longitudinal mental health screening using social media data. Designed a time-aware modeling pipeline that captures patterns over variable posting intervals and tracks changes in emotional states over time. Integrates domain-specific contextual embeddings to analyze longitudinal trajectories rather than isolated posts, improving anxiety trend detection.
Designed and implemented a semantic search module using NLP techniques for Sinhala language news. Developed an ontology to model domain knowledge and improve query interpretation. Built pipelines for entity extraction, concept mapping, and structured knowledge representation, enhancing search accuracy through semantic relevance rather than keyword matching.
Research & Publications
Peer-reviewed work in NLP, digital mental health and machine learning. Full list and PDFs available on request.
CIERTe: Continuous Inter-Event Relative Temporal Anchoring for Anxiety Detection from Social Media Posts ACM
Senanayake A., & Liang, Z. · 17th ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics (ACM BCB)
A Multi-Metric Framework for Evaluating Synthetic Explanations in Digital Mental Health
Priyadarshana Y.H.P.P., Senanayake A., & Liang, Z. · 19th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2026)
CE-LAH: Contextualized Embeddings for Longitudinal Analysis of Human Anxiety IEEE
Senanayake A., & Liang, Z. · 2025 IEEE 14th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE)
Time Series Analysis for Social Media Anxiety Detection: A Mini Review IEEE
Senanayake A., & Liang, Z. · 2024 IEEE 13th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE), pp. 1006–1007
Prompt Engineering for Digital Mental Health: A Short Review
Priyadarshana Y.H.P.P., Senanayake A., Liang Z., & Piumarta I. · Frontiers in Digital Health, 6, 1410947
A Narrative Review on Human Anxiety Detection in Social Media Using Natural Language Processing
Senanayake A.L., & Liyanage S. · Journal of Desk Research Review and Analysis 1.2 (2023)
Nouns Speak: A Novel Approach for Noun Sentiment Scoring 🏆 Best Paper Award ✨ Best Young Author
Senanayake A.L., Priyadarshana Y.P., & Ranathunga L. · 2018 IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technology Conference (R10-HTC), pp. 1–6
Anxiety Detection in Reddit Posts Through Emotion Dynamics Analysis 🏅 Honorable Mention – Best Poster
Senanayake A.L, Liang Z. · 18th International Conference on Health Informatics (HEALTHINF 2025)
PIFU: A Novel Framework to Evaluate the Interpretability of Synthetic Free-Text Explanations in Digital Mental Health 🔥 Most Trending Paper
Y.H.P.P Priyadarshana, Senanayake A, Liang Z · Human-Centered Evaluation and Auditing of Language Models (HEAL@CHI '25)
Comparative Analysis of XGBoost and Conventional Machine Learning Models for Detecting Anxiety Using Psycholinguistic Features in Social Media Text
Senanayake AL, Y.H.P.P Priyadarshana, Liang Z · 87th National Convention of IPSJ, Japan
Enhancing Interpretability of Large Language Models for Contextually Dissimilar Tasks
Y.H.P.P Priyadarshana, Senanayake A.L, Liang Z · 87th National Convention of IPSJ, Japan
Sinhala E-Newspaper Enhancer: An Ontological Approach For Sinhala Sentiment Scoring Using Recurrent Neural Networks
Senanayake A.L., Chandana S., Gunawardena L., Waidyarathne H., & Ranathunga L.
Recognition
Academic awards, research recognition, and competition wins across the years.
Endorsements
Academic supervisors and mentors who can speak to my work and character.
Available upon request · detailed reference letters can be provided
What's Next?
I'm currently open to research internship opportunities in NLP, digital health, and AI. Whether you have a question, a collaboration idea, or just want to say hello, my inbox is always open!
Say Hello