Mevan Wijewardena

Electrical Engineering Ph.D. Candidate
EEB-514, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern Califonia
mpathira@usc.edu
CV|Google Scholar

Brief Bio

I am a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) advised by Professor Michael James Neely. My research interests span stochastic optimization, game theory. In particular, I am interested in the applications of stochastic optimization and game theory in communications problems. I am also interested in problems in information theory.

Before USC, I completed my Bachelor's Degree in Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. My undergraduate advisors were Dr. Tharaka Samarasinghe, Dr. Subodha Charles and Dr. Kasun Hemchandra.

Education

University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA (Aus. 2022 - Present)

  • Ph.D in Electrical Engineering
  • Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
  • Advisor - Professor Michael J. Neely
  • CGPA - 4.0/4.0

University of Moratuwa, Mortuwa, Sri Lanka (Nov. 2016 - Aug. 2021)

  • BSc Engineering Honours Degree.
  • Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering.
  • Advisors - Dr. Tharaka Samarasinghe, Dr. Subodha Charles, Dr. Kasun Hemachandra
  • CGPA of 4.06 out of 4.2
  • Dean's list placements - Semesters 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8
  • Ranked 5 out of 101

University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zeland (Jun. 2019 - Dec. 2019)

  • Visiting Student at the Augmented Human Lab.
  • Advisor- Professor Suranga Nanayakkara

Publications

A Two-Player Resource-Sharing Game with Asymmetric Information [pdf]

M. Wijewardena, Michael. J Neely.

in MDPI Games, vol. 14, issue. 5.

Multi-Player Resource-Sharing Games with Fair Reward Allocation[pdf]

M. Wijewardena, Michael. J Neely.

Arxiv Preprint

Physical Layer Security for Intelligent Reflecting Surface Assisted Two–Way Communications [pdf]

M. Wijewardena, T. Samarasinghe, K. T. Hemachandra, S. Atapattu and J. S. Evans.

in IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 25, no. 7, pp. 2156-2160, July 2021.

MAGHair: A Wearable System to Create Unique Tactile Feedback by Stimulating Only the Body Hair[pdf]

R. Boldu, M. Wijewardena, H. Zhang, and S. Nanayakkara.

in 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI ’20), Oct.2020.

Write-Ups

Asymptotic Behaviour of the Connection Probability of Cell Partitioned Networks [pdf]

F. D. Tarzjani, M. Wijewardena.

Point-wise and Uniform Convergence of Fourier Series [pdf]

M. Wijewardena.

As a part of Math 425b)- Fundamental Concepts of Analysis taught by Prof. Trevor Leslie at USC

Sub-Gaussian Random Variables, Tail Probability Bounds With Random Number of Samples [pdf]

M. Wijewardena.

Sequence-to-short Sequence Learning with Attention Based Autoencoders for Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring [pdf]

M. Wijewardena, S. Pathiranage, T. Nanyakkara, I. Rajapakshe, S. Charles and T. Samarasinghe.

Teaching and Work Experience

Teaching Assitant - University of Southern California, Los Angeles (Aug. 2023 - Present)

  • EE 512 - Stochastic Processes for Financial Engineering
    • Teaching Assistant
    • Instructor: Prof. George Papavassilopoulos
    • Fall 2023, Spring 2024

Lecturer (On Contract) - University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka (June. 2021 - July 2022)

  • EN2073 - Analog and Digital Communications
    • Teaching Assistant
    • Instructor: Dr. Tharaka Samarasinghe
  • EN2040 - Random Signals and Processes
    • Teaching Assistant
    • Instructor: Dr. Tharaka Samarasinghe
  • EN2053 - Communication Systems and Networks
    • Teaching Assistant
    • Instructors: Prof. Ruwan Udayanga and Eng. Kithsiri Samarasinghe
  • EN2022 - Digital Electronics
    • Conducting Laboratory Sessions for Computer Organization Section
  • EN2090 - Laboratory Practice - II
    • Conducting Laboratory Sessions
  • EN1094 - Laboratory Practice - I
    • Designing and Conducting Laboratory Sessions for Telecommunications

Honors and Awards

  • Bronze medal - 2016
  • Bronze medal - 2014
  • Bronze medal - 2013
  • Bronze medal - 2012
  • Participation - 2011
  • Silver medal - 2016 [results]
  • Bronze medal - 2015
  • Bronze medal - 2014
  • Participation - 2016
  • Gold medal - 2016
  • Gold medal - 2014
  • Gold medal - 2013
  • Gold medal - 2012
  • Bronze medal - 2011
  • Gold medal - 2016
  • Awarded to the best performer at Sri Lanka mathematical Olympiads
  • 2013, 2014, 2016
  • 2020 - Team TeamNameUOM, world rank - 52, country rank - 1
  • 2018 - Team TeamName, world rank - 91, country rank - 4
  • 2017 - Team TeamName, world rank - 127, country rank - 2
  • 2020 - Qualified for round 2, world rank - 2839, country rank - 2 [certificate]
  • 2019 - Qualified for round 2, world rank - 1011, country rank - 2 [certificate]
  • 2021 - Team TeamName, world rank - 1879, country rank - 5 [certificate]
  • 2020 - Team TeamName, world rank - 549, country rank - 3 [certificate]
  • 2019 - Team TeamName, world rank - 1655, country rank - 2 [certificate]
  • Codeforces- country rank - 3 [profile]
  • HackerEarth [profile]
    • March circuits 2020- world rank - 13
    • April circuits 2020- world rank - 9
    • May circuits 2020- world rank - 4
  • Codechef [profile]
    • May Challenge 2019 Division 2 - world rank - 10
  • Project Euler - country rank - 5 [profile]
  • HackStat a data science hackathon organized by the Stat Circle of University of Colombo - 2018 - Team TeamName, second runners up
  • ACES coders an algorithmic programming competition organized by the Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya - 2020 - Team TeamName, runners up
  • MoraXtreme an algorithmic programming competition organized by the Computer Society - IEEE University of Moratuwa Student Branch - 2017 - Team TeamName, champions

Selected Courses

Here are some of my grad courses at USC and some online courses I completed.
  • CSCI 678- Theoretical Machine Learning- Fall'24 at USC
  • EE 550- Data Networks- Spring'24 at USC
  • ISE 633- Large Scale Optimization and Machine Learning- Spring'24 at USC
  • EE 649- Stochastic Network Optimization and Adaptive Learning- Fall'23 at USC
  • EE 503-Probability for Electrical and. Computer Engineers- Fall'22 at USC
  • EE 510-Linear Algebra for Engineering- Fall'22 at USC
  • EE 562-Random Processes in Engineering- Spring'23 at USC
  • Math 425b-Fundamental Concepts of Analysis- Spring'23 at USC
  • Machine Learning - Stanford University, Coursera [certificate]
  • Neural Networks and Deep Learning - Stanford University, Coursera [certificate]
  • Improving Deep Neural Networks - Stanford University, Coursera [certificate]
  • Sequence models - Stanford University, Coursera [certificate]
  • Probabilistic Graphical Models 1: Representation - Stanford University, Coursera [certificate]
  • EE263 Introduction to Linear Dynamical Systems - Stanford University
  • EE364A Convex Optimization 1 - Stanford University
  • Classical Mechanics - Stanford University
  • Introduction to Complex Analysis - Wesleyan University, Coursera [certificate]
  • Bayesian Methods for Machine Learning (with Honours) - Higher School of Economics, Coursera [certificate]
  • Macroeconomics - Khan Academy

Personal

  • I am a music enthusiast, and I enjoy recording cover songs during my free time. This channel contains some of the cover songs done by me and my wife.
  • I also like powerlifting (415 LB - deadlift, 275 LB - squat, 195 LB - bench at 172 LB)