Nisansa Dilushan de Silva

I am a lecturer at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. I obtained my Ph.D (2020, advisor: Dejing Dou) and MS (2016) degrees in Computer and Information Science from University of Oregon, USA and my BSc (Hons) in Computer Science & Engineering (2011) degree from University of Moratuwa. I joined University of Moratuwa as a lecturer in 2011. From 2013 to 2014, I worked as a researcher at LIRNEasia. In 2018, I worked as a Givens Associate at Argonne National Laboratory, USA. I have over 80 peer reviewed publications in the field of computer science, mostly under the subfields of Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence, earning more than 1400 citations. I am also an associate member of the IESL.

Professional Experience

  • Present 2020

    Senior Lecturer

    Department of Computer science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa,
    Sri Lanka

  • 2021 2020

    Research Fellow

    LIRNEasia,
    Sri Lanka

  • 2020 2014

    Graduate Research/Teaching Fellow

    University of Oregon, Department of Computer and Information Science,
    USA.

  • 2018 2018

    Givens Associate

    Argonne National Laboratory,
    USA.

  • 2020 2011

    Lecturer

    Department of Computer science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa,
    Sri Lanka

  • 2014 2013

    Researcher

    LIRNEasia,
    Sri Lanka

  • 2014 2013

    Visiting Lecturer

    Northshore College of Business and Technology,
    Sri Lanka

Education

  • Ph.D. 2020

    Ph.D. in Computer & Information Science

    University of Oregon, USA

  • MS 2016

    MS in Computer & Information Science

    University of Oregon, USA

  • BSc2011

    B.Sc Engineering (Hons)in Computer Science & Engineering

    University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Featured Research

Natural Language Processing for Government: Problems and Potential


Y. Wijeratne, N. de Silva, and Y. Shanmugarajah

LIRNEasia, 2019,

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a broad umbrella of technologies used for computationally studying large amounts of text and extracting meaning - both syntactic and semantic information. Software using NLP technologies, if engineered for that purpose, generally have the advantage of being able to process large amounts of text at rates greater than humans. A large number of the functions of a government today revolve around vast amounts of text data - from interactions with citizens to examining archives to passing orders, acts, and bylaws. Under ideal conditions, NLP technologies can assist in the processing of these texts, thus potentially providing significant improvements in speed and efficiency to various departments of government. Many proposals and examples exist illustrating how this can be done for multiple domains - from registering public complaints, to conversing with citizens, to tracking policy changes across bills and Acts. This whitepaper seeks to examine both the current state of the art of NLP and illustrate government-oriented use cases that are feasible among resource-rich languages.