Pasan Dissanayake

About

I am currently a fourth-year PhD student at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland (UMD), advised by Prof. Sanghamitra Dutta. My research focuses on efficient and sustainable machine learning, with an emphasis on model reconstruction and knowledge distillation techniques to democratize reliable AI. I aim to extract and transfer large model intelligence into compact architectures by systematically integrating interpretability/explainability methods. My research provides theoretical guarantees, leveraging optimization, information theory, and statistics, along with experimental validation on real-world datasets and benchmarks.

I received BSc in Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka (UoM) in 2021, where I graduated with a first class. Prior to joining UMD, I was a Lecturer-on-Contract and a Research Assistant at UoM. During this time, my focus was on wireless communication and statistical signal processing. My research adviser was Dr. Prathapasinghe Dharmawansa. My undergraduate thesis project was advised by Dr. Peshala Jayasekara and Dr. Ranga Rodrigo.

I was awarded the George Corcoran Memorial Award for a Graduate Student (UMD) in 2025, the Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award (UMD) for the academic year 2024-2025, the Dean’s Fellowship (UMD) for the year 2022-2023, and was included in the Dean’s List (UoM) in years 2017 to 2021 (all 8 semesters).

Interests

Knowledge Distillation, Explainability, Fairness, Privacy, Travelling, Swimming

Contact

• Email: pasand_AT_umd_DOT_edu
• Mailing address: 2109 A.V. Williams Building, 8223 Paint Branch Drive, College Park, MD 20742

I am also available on the following platforms: