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Lally 306
- senevo@rpi.edu
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x2510
- 0000-0001-8518-917X
About
Oshani Seneviratne is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she leads the BRAINS (Bridging Resilient, Accountable, Intelligent Networked Systems) Lab. Her primary research interest is advancing Decentralized Systems (Web, Blockchain, and Decentralized Learning technologies), and she conducts applied research in health informatics and decentralized finance. Oshani obtained her S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under the supervision of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. She previously served as the Director of Health Data Research at Rensselaer.
- Ph.D. in Computer Science, MIT
- S.M. in in Computer Science, MIT
- B.Sc. (Hons) in Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Research
Our research focuses on the novel application of decentralized information systems, such as the World Wide Web and blockchain technologies, to advance human endeavors. From the invention of the Web three decades ago to the formulation of blockchain technologies only a little over a decade ago, decentralized information systems have transformed various aspects of human experience, from healthcare, finance, education, entertainment, research, and social connections through creative and timely breakthroughs. Various fields at the intersection and periphery of decentralized information systems, such as artificial intelligence, knowledge graphs, security, privacy, and human-computer interaction, are essential components of my research agenda. In particular, we are investigating the application of decentralized techniques in addressing the challenge of designing an effective data-sharing infrastructure, intending to make it accountable (i.e., there is transparency in how the data is used) and the data-sharing is incentivized (i.e., to ensure the adoption of the system will scale organically), which are becoming significant problems in the age of generative AI. Additionally, we are investigating fundamental questions on leveraging the data from the edge in a more secure, privacy-preserving way and how emerging decentralized application infrastructures can be interoperable while reducing data and value silos, as the composition of these systems is fundamentally different and will have varying degrees of security, trust, and identity mechanisms.
Teaching
- Courses:
- Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, 2025 Spring
- AI and Blockchain, 2025 Spring, 2024 Spring, 2023 Spring & Fall, 2022 Fall
- AI in Fact and Fiction, 2023 Fall, 2020 & 2021 summers
- MIT Global Startup Labs, 2011 and 2012 summers
- Introduction to Computer Science at MIT Women’s Technology Program; 2010 summer
- Guest Lectures:
- Grad Skills, 2024 Fall, 2023 Fall
- Advanced Financial Technologies, 2021 Spring
- Predictive Modeling, 2020 Spring
- Data Science 2019 Spring, 2019 Fall, 2020 Spring, 2020 Fall, 2021 Spring, 2021 Fall, 2022 Spring
- XInformatics; 2019 Spring, 2020 Spring, 2021 Spring, 2022 Spring
- Introduction to Artificial Intelligence; 2019 Spring
- Ontology Engineering, Data Science, and Web Systems classes; 2018 Fall
- Cognitive Computing; 2018 and 2019 Spring
Recognition
Oshani's work has been featured in the following news articles.
- "Rensselaer Researchers Work To Avoid Future FTX Debacles," https://news.rpi.edu/content/2023/01/10/rensselaer-researchers-work-avoid-future-ftx-debacles, January 2023
- “Rensselaer To Advance Blockchain Tech With $360k Grant,” https://news.rpi.edu/content/2022/08/30/rensselaer-advance-blockchain-tech-360k-grant, September 2022
- “Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to Co-chair Symposium on AI for Social Good”, https://news.rpi.edu/approach/2019/10/30, October 2019
- “Rensselaer Researchers Use Blockchain to Boost Medical Image Sharing”, https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/rensselaer-researchers-use-blockchain-to-boost-medical-image-sharing, June 2019
- “Delving Deep Into Artificial Intelligence,” https://magazine.rpi.edu/feature/delving-deep-into-artificial-intelligence
- “Who’s Using Your Data?” MIT News June 2014, and MIT Technology Review, August 2014
- “How ‘HTTP with Accountability’ Will Let You Track Who Uses Your Data”, Motherboard, Vice.com, June 2014
- “Accountable HTTP Seeks to increase data privacy through transparency”, ITWorld, June 2014
- Distinguished Paper Award at American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) ’23 Annual Symposium for ”MentalHealthAI: Utilizing Personal Health Device Data to Optimize Psychiatry Treatment” https://amia.org/about-amia/amia-awards/research-awards/distinguished-paper-awards
- Selected as a Mobile Health Training Institute Scholar at UCLA for the 2023 cohort https://mhti.md2k.org/index.php/scholars
- Best Paper Award at the Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Workshop for “Leveraging Clinical Context for User-Centered Explainability: A Diabetes Use Case”; Shruthi Chari, Prithwish Chakraborty, Mohamed Ghalwash, Oshani Seneviratne, Elif K Eyigoz, Daniel M Gruen, Fernando Suarez Saiz, Ching-Hua Chen, Pablo Meyer Rojas, Deborah L McGuinness
- Best Student Paper Award at the 4th International Workshop on Data Engineering Meets Intelligent Cooking Recipes (DECOR) 2021 for “Semantic Modeling for Food Recommendation Explanations”; Ishita Padhiar, Oshani Seneviratne, Shruthi Chari, Daniel M. Gruen, and Deborah L. McGuinness
- Best Resource Paper Award at the 19th International Semantic Web Conference 2020 for Explanation Ontology: A Model of Explanations for User-Centered AI; Shruthi Chari, Oshani Seneviratne, Daniel M. Gruen , Morgan A. Foreman , Amar K. Das, Deborah L. McGuinness Best Use of Data Award, NASA Space Apps Challenge 2016
- Gamechanger | Best Out of the Box Prize for "EMSights: Emergency Medicine Insights" at the FHIR @hack 2021
- Best Communications App, May 2014, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, AT&T Mobile App Hackathon, Washington DC
- Best Computing and Most Technically Interesting Project Award, Big Travel Data Hackathon 2013, Boston MA
- Key Scientific Challenge Winner 2011, Yahoo Research
- World Wide Web Travel Awards 2009 and 2011 by Google Inc.
- Grace Hopper Scholarship Award 2005 (as an undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka) and 2011 (as a Ph.D. student at MIT) from the Anita Borg Institute
Publications
The following is a selection of recent publications in Scopus. Oshani Seneviratne has 93 indexed publications in the subjects of Computer Science, Mathematics, Decision Sciences.