Profile

Buddini Karawdeniya

Research Interests

  • Metasurface optical sensing
  • Gas sensing
  • Solid-state nanopore single molecule sensing
  • Surface functionalization
  • Surface enhanced Raman sensing

Education

  • Bachelor of Science, University of Colombo
  • Bachelor of Science, Institute of Chemistry, Sri Lanka
  • Doctor of Philosophy University of Rhode Island, USA, 2018

Achievements & Awards

  • 2021 2nd Prize for the Best Research Presentation in the ECR category at the Student and ECR Conference, ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS)
  • 2017 Eastern Analytical Symposium Graduate Student Research Award
  • 2016 Graduate School Fellowship, University of Rhode Island (1-year full tuition and benefits, competitive)
  • 2016 NSF EPSCoR Track II NEWRNet travel award (Bioanalytical Sensors Gordon conference, 2016)
  • 2015 FACSS Student Poster Award for Electroless gold plating as an adaptable tool to fabricate custom surface enhanced Raman spectroscopic (SERS) substrates at the SciX 2015 conference
  • 2015 Outstanding Third Year Graduate Student Award, Department of Chemistry (U. Rhode Island) and Phillis R. Brown Chemistry Scholarship (U. Rhode Island)
  • 2015-18 URI Intellectual Property Awards (U. Rhode Island)
  • 2014 R. Ken Force Graduate Fellowship for Analytical Chemistry (U. Rhode Island)

Themes

  • Manipulate

Dr. Karawdeniya earned her Bachelor of science, in chemistry and biological science, in Sri Lanka and earner her PhD in Chemistry from University of Rhode Island, United States in 2018. She joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2020 she joined the Research School of Physics of Australian National University as a Research Fellow. Her research is in the cross fields of Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering. Dr. Karawdeniya is passionate about developing point-of-care sensors for health and environmental monitoring. Her major areas of interest are • metasurface optical sensors • solid-state nanopore single-molecule sensors • surface-enhanced Raman sensors • gas sensors • surface modification strategies Her expertise includes sensor platform development, surface chemical and physical modification, nanofabrication, and 3D design/printing. She is interested in the detection of biomarkers in biological fluids and volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath. Currently, Dr. Karawdeniya lead multiple research projects aimed at developing novel sensing technologies for health care monitoring. While being part of ARC CoE TMOS, she is also a part of the ANU Grand Challenge ‘Our health in Our Hands’ (OHIOH), a ANU research initiative aimed at bringing multiple disciplines together to develop new technologies for detection and monitoring of health conditions like diabetes. She is also the Program Coordinator of OHIOH Sensors.

Current Projects

  • Metasurface VOC sensing
  • Semiconductor chemiresistive acetone sensor
  • Metasurface biosensing


View all people