Dr. Gunawardana is a distinguished technology leader with over a decade of global experience in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, and Generative AI.
Currently serving as Senior Director and Head of Graph with GenAI at JP Morgan’s ML Center of Excellence, Dr. Gunawardana has consistently driven business-critical innovation, most notably delivering a cutting-edge GenAI and Graph Data Product with a projected revenue impact of ~$100 million.
Combining deep technical acumen with visionary leadership, Dr. Gunawardana excels in building and scaling AI/ML solutions that deliver measurable value. Her leadership has spanned globally distributed, high-performance teams, where she has set strategic direction, nurtured talent, and championed inclusive innovation. Her key contributions include developing GenAI solutions to drastically improve client-advisor interactions, engineering LLM-powered semantic search over billion-scale knowledge graphs, and spearheading enterprise-wide responsible AI and data governance frameworks.
In addition to her technical leadership, Dr. Gunawardana is a passionate advocate for knowledge sharing and cross-functional collaboration. She serves as Chair of the JP Morgan ML Symposium and Track Lead for the firm’s AI Summit, regularly presenting at international conferences and fostering a culture of continuous learning through internal ML forums. Her work has resulted in multiple industrial patents and peer-reviewed publications, reflecting a career at the forefront of technological advancement.
Dr. Gunawardana holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southampton, where she was awarded a fully funded scholarship and focused her research on modelling transcriptomic and proteomic data using machine learning. She also holds a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from the University of Colombo School of Computing, graduating with First Class Honours and receiving the Gold Medal for Best Academic Student, with a GPA of 3.96 out of 4.00.
Recognized by peers and leadership alike, Dr. Gunawardana received the JP Morgan Award for Extraordinary Contribution in Promoting AI Across the Business. Her leadership is defined by a commitment to technical excellence, ethical innovation, and empowering the next generation of AI talent.
