About Me

I am a Ph.D. graduate in AI/ML (Engineering and IT) from the University of Melbourne, with over five years of experience in machine learning, computer vision, and signal processing. I hold a B.Sc. Engineering (Hons) in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Moratuwa, where I graduated with First Class Honours, the Gold Medal in Biomedical Engineering as top student, and the Convocation Award as the most outstanding graduand of the faculty.

My Ph.D. research, “Trustworthy Machine Learning for Computer Vision: A Representation-centric Perspective,” develops methods for open-set recognition, representation learning, network calibration, and deepfake detection several of which achieve state-of-the-art performance. This work has led to publications at ECCV 2026 and CVPR 2026.

Beyond ML, I have a strong background in signal processing leading to a Q1 journal publication and a runner-up finish at the IEEE Signal Processing Cup and have worked on digital systems and computer architecture design.

Across these projects I’ve developed strong analytical, leadership, and communication skills: leading award-winning teams at the IEEE Signal Processing Cup and a national datathon, rowing in a university crew, and founding and serving as first president of the IEEE Signal Processing Society student branch at my university.

Publications

	FeDLaS: Feature-Modulated Bidirectional Label Smoothing for Neural Network Calibration Nadarasar Bahavan, Sachith Seneviratne, Saman Halgamuge ECCV 2026 [paper] / [supplemental] / [code]
	SpHOR: A Representation Learning Perspective on Open-Set Recognition for Identifying Unknown Classes in Deep Learning Models Nadarasar Bahavan, Sachith Seneviratne, Saman Halgamuge CVPR Findings 2026 [paper] / [supplemental] / [code]
	Beyond Deepfake vs Real: Facial Deepfake Detection in the Open-Set Paradigm Nadarasar Bahavan, Sachith Seneviratne, Sanjay Saha, Ken Chen, Sanka Rasnayaka, Saman Halgamuge CVPR Workshops 2026 [paper] / [supplemental]
	Towards an Objective Measurement of Presence, Place Illusion, and Plausibility Illusion in Virtual Reality using EEG Nadarasar Bahavan, N. Suman, S.A.D.O. Wickramasooriya, K.I. Akalanka, A. De Silva, R. Peiris Virtual Reality, Springer 2023 [paper] / [code]