I’m a third year Computer Science PhD student working with Prof. Immanuel Trummer in the College of Computing and Information Science at Cornell University.

Large language models (LLMs) are transforming how we understand and analyze information, but the high inference cost makes it difficult to use them at scale. My research explores new ways to make these AI systems more efficient by enabling cost-effective data analysis for real-world applications.

Before that, I was a Software Engineer at WSO2 developing language server features for the compiler backend of Ballerina Programming Language for 2 years. In 2021, I completed my Bachelors (honours) in Computer Science from University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka.

News

• Jul 2025 : Our paper “CEDAR: A System for Cost-Efficient Data-Driven Claim Verification” is accepted to VLDB 2025!
• Mar 2025 : Our paper “Demonstrating CEDAR: A System for Cost-Efficient Data-Driven Claim Verification” is accepted to SIGMOD 2025!
• Mar 2024 : GRASSHOPR Fellow - Graduate Student School Outreach Program at Cornell University.
• Jan 2024 : Attended WELEAD (Spring 2024) - A Cornell Engineering Leadership Program supporting Cornell engineers on their path to becoming powerful and inclusive future leaders.
• Aug 2023 : Awarded a Cornell University Fellowship for the Academic Year 2023/2024.
• Aug 2023 : Started my PhD in Computer Science at Cornell University!
• Nov 2022 : Published the book chapter “A Comprehensive Analysis of Aspect-Oriented Suggestion Extraction from Online Reviews” in Deep Learning Applications, Volume 4. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1434. Springer, Singapore.
• Oct 2022 : Awarded the ICT Student Award in Undergraduate Category at the National ICT Awards 2022 organized by Computer Society of Sri Lanka. Link
• Aug 2022 : Attended the Cornell, Maryland, Max-Planck Pre-Doctoral Research School (CMMRS) 2022 in Saarbruecken, Germany. Link
• Jul 2022 : Graduated from University of Colombo School of Computing with the following awards. Link
  1. Student of the Year Award 2020, University of Colombo - For excellence in academics, sports, aesthetic and cultural, leadership, conduct and character.
  2. Prof. Mohan Munasinghe Award in Computer Science 2020 - For achieving the highest GPA (3.98/ 4.0) in the Computer Science degree programme.
  3. Prof. V. K. Samaranayake Memorial Medal 2020 - For the Most Outstanding Graduate of the UCSC.
• Dec 2021 : Presented the research paper “Aspect Oriented Suggestion Extraction from Online Reviews” at 20th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA) 2021.
• Nov 2021 : Presented “Improving Python Tools for Suricata: My Outreachy Internship” at SuriCon 2021, Boston, USA. Link
• May 2021 : Started working as a Software Engineer at WSO2.

Publications

1. Tharushi Jayasekara and Immanuel Trummer. 2025. CEDAR: A System for Cost-Efficient Data-Driven Claim Verification. Proc. VLDB Endow. 18, 11 (July 2025), 4492–4504. https://doi.org/10.14778/3749646.3749708

2. Tharushi Jayasekara and Immanuel Trummer. 2025. Demonstrating CEDAR: A System for Cost-Efficient Data-Driven Claim Verification. In Companion of the 2025 International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD/PODS ‘25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 135–138. https://doi.org/10.1145/3722212.3725098

3. Jayasekara, T.K., Weerasinghe, A.R., Welgama, W.V. (2023). A Comprehensive Analysis of Aspect-Oriented Suggestion Extraction from Online Reviews. In: Wani, M.A., Palade , V. (eds) Deep Learning Applications, Volume 4. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1434. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6153-3_5

4. T. Jayasekara, R. Weerasinghe and V. Welgama, Aspect Oriented Suggestion Extraction from Online Reviews, 2021 20th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), 2021, pp. 1561-1568, doi: 10.1109/ICMLA52953.2021.00250.