About Me

I am currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Department of Biology, School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, USA, working under the supervision of Prof. Hunter Fraser. My research centers on understanding evolutionary dynamics and developing high-performance computational tools to analyze biological processes. 

I hold a Ph.D. specializing in Bioinformatics. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, Canada. My doctoral research focused on within-host evolution, particularly in the context of pathogen genomics and cancer.

My academic journey began with the completion of a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc. Hons) degree with a specialization in Biology from the Faculty of Applied Sciences at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, where I graduated with a First Class. During these four years, I trained mainly in wet lab sciences and explored the genetic and physiological factors of organisms. My undergraduate thesis explored the molecular cloning of the Cystatin C (CST3) protein from Oplegnathus fasciatus as well as an in-detail in-silico study of its protein-protein interactions and viability as a cysteine protease inhibitor via protein docking and gene-gene interaction mapping. I was supervised by Prof. Dinithi Peiris.

After successfully completing my undergraduate studies, I shifted from wet-lab biology to dry-lab Bioinformatics for my doctoral studies. My Ph.D. supervisor was Prof. Quan Long (Long Lab). We investigated evolutionary dynamics experienced by organisms, focusing on pathogen genomics and neutrality. We also worked on simulating and modeling cancer, with an emphasis on within-host selection dynamics.

Research Interests

My current goal is to explore the development of computational tools for solving genetic problems. Ideally, I design and develop accelerated and scalable software solutions. A major drawback of expanding genetic data is the inability to process these vast repositories. Therefore, I wish to develop software solutions that are not only capable of rapid processing times via the use of parallel processing technologies such as the GPU, CPU, and SSD but also make these software resource-efficient so that they can be scaled to adapt to the dataset being processed and the hardware resources at hand.

Professional Profiles & Repositories

GitHub, Google Scholar, and LinkedIn

Academic Publications

‪Google Scholar‬, ResearchGate, Semantic Scholar, Web of Science, ORCiD

Scholarships and Awards

2025 MDBC Nominee for Chancellor's Graduate Medal and Governor General's Gold Medal, University of Calgary, Canada.

2024 Graduate Faculty Council Scholarship (Doctoral), University of Calgary, Canada.

2024 Gordon H. Dixon Award for meritorious doctoral student in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, University of Calgary, Canada.

2021, 2022 & 2023 Alberta Innovates Graduate Student Scholarship.

2021, 2024 Eyes High International Scholarship, University of Calgary, Canada.

2020, 2021, and 2024 Biochemistry and Molecular Biology First Author Award, University of Calgary, Canada.

Professional work experiences

Postdoctoral scholar at the Department of Biology, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, USA.

Research Associate at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada.

Reviewer for articles in Bioinformatics (2023), BMC Genomics (2025).

Demonstrator at the Department of Zoology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka.

Research Scientist at the Industrial Technology Institute, Sri Lanka.

Expertise

My areas of expertise are from both dry lab (Ph.D. (Bioinformatics)) and wet lab (B.Sc. (Hons) Biology) sciences.

Dry Lab

Statistical population genetics

Evolution and selection 

Genomic analysis such as:
Sequence Alignment,
Phylogenetics (BEAST, MEGA),
Variant Calling (GATK best practices).

Protein modeling and docking

C/C++ CUDA based low level programming solutions

Large-scale parallel processing program designs (GPU, CPU, and SSD solutions)

Anaconda package deployment

JAVA, R, Python, and TensorFlow solutions

Wet Lab

Molecular cloning

DNA extraction

Recombinant DNA techniques

PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), Gel electrophoresis

Affiliations

Department of Biology, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, USA.

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada.

Department of Zoology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka.

Contact

deshan@stanford.edu

duwagedahampriyabala@ucalgary.ca

LinkedIn