Amarasinghe, Pathinarage Ishari Uthpala

Ishari Amarasinghe is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher specialising in Learning Analytics, Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Education. Her research examines how intelligent and data-driven technologies can enhance collaborative learning processes and support teachers’ real-time pedagogical decision making, with a particular focus on orchestration load. In parallel, she applies advanced analytical and statistical methods to broader societal challenges, including large-scale misinformation monitoring and citizen-science engagement. She draws on learning analytics, multimodal data analysis, human–computer interaction, and participatory design to produce rigorous, actionable insights across both educational and social domains.

She is a member of the TIDE (Interactive & Distributed Technologies for Education) research group at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Spain and the AID4So (Artificial Intelligence and Data for Society) group at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Spain. She completed her PhD in ICT at UPF with the highest distinction (Excellent, Summa Cum Laude) and an International Mention. She holds an MSc in Intelligent Interactive Systems from UPF and a BSc (Hons) in ICT from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her postdoctoral trajectory includes an international appointment at the National Education Lab AI (NOLAI), Radboud University, Netherlands, where she co-designed AI-driven tools to support K-12 teachers in AI-enhanced classrooms. She has also completed research stays at EPFL (CHILI Lab, Switzerland) and at the University of Duisburg–Essen, Germany.

Ishari has published in leading journals (ISI JCR Q1) including Computers & Education, IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, International Journal of CSCL, British Journal of Educational Technology, User Modelling and User adapted Interaction, and Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, and has collaborated with more than 40 researchers across Europe, Asia, the United States, and Latin America.

Relevant past projects to which she has contributed include H2OLearn (hybrid learning analytics), and SmartLET (IoT-enhanced smart learning environments) and CS-Track (analytics for citizen science). She is currently contributing to the IDEAL project as WP5 Leader, supporting the coordination of valorisation and stakeholder-engagement activities, and to the SIMODS project as Analytics Lead, developing statistical analyses to produce a statistically significant and methodologically sound assessment of the prevalence of misinformation across six social media platforms in four languages.

Her teaching and mentoring experience spans bachelor’s and master’s programmes at UPF (2019–present). She has supervised several bachelor’s theses, master’s theses, and a PhD candidate, and has served on examination committees for multiple bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral defences at UPF. She is also actively involved in peer-reviewing, proposal development, and research capacity building within her institutions.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ishari-amarasinghe-phd-21a26888/ 

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pRDtY9IAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao 

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2960-4804 

PPC: https://producciocientifica.upf.edu/SPPC/researcher?lang=ca&researcherId=8569 

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=55608399400