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Naveen Karunanayake

Machine Learning Researcher

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About Me

I am a passionate and results-driven professional with 7+ years of experience in Machine Learning, AI research, and applied data science, backed by a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Sydney. My career spans academia and industry, where I have designed innovative ML solutions that balance creativity, scalability, and sustainability. With a strong foundation in both theoretical research and real-world engineering, I thrive in tackling complex, emerging challenges. I bring proven expertise in ML research, model development, and AI-driven problem solving, complemented by excellent communication and collaborative skills.

Experience

Data Scientist

Future Secure AI Pty LTD, Sydney, Australia

Machine Learning Researcher

The University of Sydney, Australia

Machine Learning Engineer

Fcode Labs (PVT) LTD, Sri Lanka

Research Scholar

University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Visiting Researcher

Data61 – CSIRO, Sydney, Australia

Education

The University of Sydney

Australia

Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science

Thesis – Adversarial and Out-of-Distribution Perspectives on Deep Neural Network Robustness

University of Moratuwa

Sri Lanka

Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering

Projects

Deep Learning-based Counterfeit Mobile App Detection in Google Play Store

This research project, conducted by Data61 at CSIRO, focused on the detection of counterfeit mobile apps in the Google Play Store using deep learning techniques. Neural embeddings were generated for over 1.2 million apps by analyzing their visual and textual features with convolutional neural networks and Word2Vec or Doc2Vec models. The objective was to identify and examine apps that imitated the most downloaded ones, checking for signs of malware, misuse of dangerous permissions, and third-party advertising libraries. The aim was to enhance the reliability of apps available to users by detecting and analyzing fraudulent practices in the Google Play Store.

Forbes Article    Usyd News    Paper

Deep Learning-based Autonomous Carrom Bot

This project is a realization of an automated smart carrom-playing robot that continuously analyzes the board configuration using a vision feed and image processing and plays a series of best possible shots to complete a game. This leverages the knowledge of reinforcement learning in implementing strategic gameplay.

Demo    Game play    Paper

Class Ranking-based Out-of-Distribution Detection

Out-of-distribution (OOD) detection remains a key challenge preventing the rollout of critical AI technologies like autonomous vehicles into the mainstream, as classifiers trained on in-distribution (ID) data are unable to gracefully handle OOD data. This project introduces a novel approach for OOD detection based on the class ranking information implicitly learned by deep neural networks during pre-training.

Post-hoc    Training-aware

Quantifying and Exploiting the Adversarial Vulnerability of Data Against Deep Neural Networks

This research investigates the vulnerability of inputs in an adversarial setting and demonstrates that certain samples are more susceptible to adversarial perturbations compared to others. Specifically, a simple yet effective approach is employed to quantify the adversarial vulnerability of inputs, which relies on the clipped gradients of the loss with respect to the input (i.e., ZGP). Furthermore, we identify a novel black-box attack pipeline that enhances the efficiency of conventional query-based black-box attacks and shows that input pre-filtering based on ZGP can boost the attack success rates, particularly under low perturbation levels.

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Publications

Journals

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