Senuri Wijenayake

Hello! I'm Senuri Wijenayake

Senior Lecturer · Human-Computer Interaction · RMIT University

I am a Senior Lecturer and an ARC DECRA Fellow in Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) in School of Computing Technologies, RMIT University, Australia. I hold a PhD in Social Computing from the University of Melbourne, and previously worked as a software engineer before moving into academia.

My research is in HCI, with a focus on Social Computing — investigating how design shapes positive and negative user behaviours on online social platforms. This stems from my doctoral work on online social conformity, and now extends into online safety, technology-facilitated abuse, and inclusive design. More recently, I have been working on co-developing design strategies and policy guidelines to better protect women and gender-diverse social media users from online abuse. I am always happy to chat and am currently looking for PhD students passionate about online safety for at-risk groups and potential design interventions.

senuri.wijenayake@rmit.edu.au Google Scholar LinkedIn GitHub

Education

Jul 2018 – Dec 2021

PhD in Computer Science (Human-Computer Interaction)

University of Melbourne — School of Computing and Information Systems

Supervisors: Dr. Jorge Goncalves and Prof. Vassilis Kostakos.

Thesis: Understanding the Dynamics of Online Social Conformity. Quantifying contextual and personal determinants of online conformity, and informing how group settings can be designed accounting for conformity influences to ensure healthy online social interactions.

Award: Graduate Research Student of the Year 2021 (Faculty of Engineering & IT).

May 2013 – Oct 2017

BSc (Hons) in Information Technology

University of Moratuwa — Faculty of Information Technology
  • Most Outstanding Student of University of Moratuwa, 2017 — for outstanding academic performance, contribution to research, voluntary work, and extra-curricular activities.
  • Gold Medal for the best academic performance in BSc (Hons) Information Technology, 2017 — GPA 4.15 / 4.20.
  • Main Student Representative for Batch 12, 2015/2016.

Experience

Jan 2026 – present

Senior Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction

RMIT University — School of Computing Technologies
  • Teach into RMIT's innovative first-year Bootcamp2Studio program in Information Technology and Computer Science, which combines intensive theory-focused bootcamps with hands-on, industry-aligned studio learning.
  • Deliver teaching across Python programming, web development, user experience (UX) design, and fundamental database concepts.
  • Facilitate practical, collaborative, and self-directed learning experiences that prepare students for real-world software and design practice.
  • Design and deliver studio-based learning activities that support students in applying technical and problem-solving skills to authentic project scenarios.
  • Mentor and support first-year students in developing foundational computing knowledge, teamwork skills, and industry readiness.
  • Contribute to curriculum development and teaching innovation within RMIT's Bootcamp2Studio teaching model.
Jan 2024 – Jan 2026

Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction

RMIT University — School of Computing Technologies
  • Cohort lead for Programming Studio 1: studio-based learning combining UX/UI fundamentals and database systems to design and develop fully functional data-driven websites.
  • Leading research projects on online safety, technology-facilitated abuse, and inclusive cybersecurity education.
Jan 2022 – Jan 2024

Associate Lecturer in Design

University of Sydney
  • Unit coordination for Design Programming and Interaction Design Studio, in the Bachelor of Design (Interaction Design) and Master of Interaction Design and Electronic Arts programs.
  • Leading and mentoring teaching teams of new and experienced staff.
  • Developing lecture, tutorial, studio, assignment, and marking material with the teaching team.
  • Online and in-person delivery of course material; handling student-staff communications.
  • Completed the Modular Professional Learning Framework certification.
Jan 2019 – Dec 2021

Academic Tutor

University of Melbourne
  • Conducted physical and online tutorials for undergraduate and graduate students.
  • Developed workshop content and rubrics; provided teaching support at the HCI Lab for usability evaluation projects.
  • Awarded the Excellence in Tutoring Award (2019) for outstanding contribution to tutoring at CIS.
  • Courses: Social Computing (INFO90007), Evaluating User Experience (INFO90004), Fundamentals of Interaction Design (INFO10003).
Aug 2017 – Jun 2018

Software Engineer

Tracified — 99X Technology
  • Designed and developed a blockchain-based traceability solution for e-commerce platforms selling premium products (organic food, gems) — providing transparency from origin to marketplace.
  • Winner of Gold Award in Retail and Supply Chain Management at the National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA) Sri Lanka 2017.
  • Led a 20+ person team of developers, UX engineers, and QA engineers as Scrum Master.
  • Full-stack development with AngularJS, TypeScript, Express, MongoDB, HTML/CSS.
Mar 2016 – Sep 2016

Software Engineering Intern

PicaSix — 99X Technology
  • Developed a web-based supply chain management system for PicaSix, aligning processes between importers, suppliers, production, wholesalers, and end consumers.
  • Full-stack development with AngularJS, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Ruby on Rails; automated frontend testing with Protractor; deployed server as a Docker container.
Aug 2014 – May 2015

Undergraduate Developer

E-kilder — Embla Software
  • Developed an interactive website to digitise handwritten Norwegian church books via crowdsourcing, enabling users to discover and visualise their family trees.
  • Full-stack development with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C#, Entity Framework, SQL Server. Led a team of four undergraduate developers.

Publications

2026

  • R. Cover, G. Buchanan, B. Figueiredo, D. X. Harris, N. Henry, E. Hurcombe, P. Howe, D. Micallef, D. McKay, P. Pond, N. Shackleton, S. Wijenayake, X. Zhou, J. Humphries, A. Alamri, R. Simcock (2026). Digital harms: consistency in definition, understanding and action (Concept Paper). Digital Ethnography Research Centre, RMIT University. PDF DOI

2025

  • S. Wijenayake, J. Gray, A. Jayathilaka, L. La Sala, N. Arachchilage, R. Kelly, S. Das (2025). Advancing Interdisciplinary Approaches to Online Safety Research. In Proceedings of the 37th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference (OzCHI '25). PDF DOI
  • A. Khan, S. Wijenayake, S. Al Lawati, D. Spnia, D. Hettiachchi (2025). Design Patterns for AI Curated Content. In Proceedings of the International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference (IASDR 2025). PDF Toolkit
  • S. Wijenayake, J. Goncalves (2025). A Review of Online Social Conformity: Outcomes and Determinants. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction (Q1). PDF DOI
  • S. de Jong, R. M. Jacobsen, J. Wester, S. Wijenayake, J. Goncalves, N. van Berkel (2025). Impact of Agent-Generated Rationales on Online Social Conformity. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT '25). PDF DOI
  • Y. Wang, M. Tomitsch, M. Hoggenmüeller, S. Wijenayake, W. Yan, L. Hespanhol (2025). From Passersby to Placemaking: Designing Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Encounters for an Urban Shared Space. Multimedia Tools and Applications (Q1). PDF DOI

2024

  • Y. Choe, S. Wijenayake, M. Tomko, M. Kalantari (2024). Mapping in Harmony: Co-designing User Interfaces for Conflict Management on OSM. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (Q1). PDF DOI

2023

  • Y. Wang, S. Wijenayake, M. Hoggenmueller, L. Hespanhol, S. Worrall, M. Tomitsch (2023). My Eyes Speak: Improving Perceived Sociability of Autonomous Vehicles in Shared Spaces Through Emotional Robotic Eyes. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (Mobile HCI 2023). PDF DOI
  • S. Wijenayake, D. Hettiachchi, J. Goncalves (2023). Combining Worker Factors for Heterogeneous Crowd Task Assignment. In Proceedings of The Web Conference 2023 (WWW '23). PDF DOI Talk

2022

  • H. Lyons, S. Wijenayake, T. Miller, E. Velloso (2022). What's the Appeal? Perceptions of Review Processes for Algorithmic Decisions. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2022 (CHI '22). PDF DOI
  • S. Wijenayake, N. van Berkel, V. Kostakos, J. Goncalves (2022). Quantifying Determinants of Social Conformity in an Online Debating Website. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IF: 5.3). PDF DOI

2021

  • S. Wijenayake, J. Hu, V. Kostakos, J. Goncalves (2021). Quantifying the Effects of Age-related Stereotypes on Online Social Conformity. In: Ardito C. et al. (eds.) Human-Computer Interaction — INTERACT 2021. LNCS 12935, Springer, Cham. PDF DOI
  • S. Wijenayake (2021). Understanding the Dynamics of Online Social Conformity. Doctoral Thesis, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Australia. PDF DOI

2020

  • S. Wijenayake, D. Hettiachchi, S. Hosio, V. Kostakos, J. Goncalves (2020). Effect of Conformity on Perceived Trustworthiness of News in Social Media. IEEE Internet Computing (IF: 3.8). PDF DOI
  • S. Wijenayake (2020). Understanding Dynamics of Online Social Conformity. Doctoral Consortium at the 23rd ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW). PDF DOI
  • D. Hettiachchi, S. Wijenayake, S. Hosio, V. Kostakos, J. Goncalves (2020). How Context Influences Cross-Device Task Acceptance in Crowd Work. In Proceedings of the Eighth AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP '20), 8(1), 53–62. PDF DOI
  • S. Wijenayake, N. van Berkel, V. Kostakos, J. Goncalves (2020). Quantifying the Effect of Social Presence on Online Social Conformity. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 4 (CSCW), 55:1–55:22. PDF DOI Talk
  • S. Wijenayake, N. van Berkel, J. Goncalves (2020). Bots for Research: Minimising the Experimenter Effect. In International Workshop on Detection and Design for Cognitive Biases in People and Computing Systems (CHI '20 Workshop), 1–9. PDF
  • S. Wijenayake, N. van Berkel, V. Kostakos, J. Goncalves (2020). Impact of Contextual and Personal Determinants on Online Social Conformity. Computers in Human Behavior (IF: 9.0), 108, 1–11. PDF DOI

2019

  • S. Wijenayake, N. van Berkel, V. Kostakos, J. Goncalves (2019). Measuring the Effects of Gender on Online Social Conformity. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 3 (CSCW), 145:1–145:24. PDF DOI
  • N. van Berkel, J. Goncalves, D. Hettiachchi, S. Wijenayake, R. M. Kelly, V. Kostakos (2019). Crowdsourcing Perceptions of Fair Predictors for Machine Learning: A Recidivism Case Study. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 3 (CSCW), 28:1–28:22. PDF DOI

2018

  • N. van Berkel, M. Budde, S. Wijenayake, J. Goncalves (2018). Improving Accuracy in Mobile Human Contributions: An Overview. In Adjunct Proceedings of the ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp '18 Adj.), 594–599. PDF DOI
  • S. Wijenayake, S. Ganiachchi, J. Wijekoon, S. Ahangama (2018). Predicting Tie Strength between Facebook Friends to Improve Accuracy in Travel Recommendation Systems. In Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems 2018 (PACIS '18), 246:1–246:24. PDF DOI
  • S. Wijenayake, T. Graham, P. Christen (2018). A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting Recidivism in Domestic Violence. In Proceedings of the Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD '18), 3–15. Springer, Cham. PDF DOI

2017

  • S. Wijenayake, S. Ganiachchi, J. Wijekoon, S. Ahangama (2017). A Context Aware & Personalized Multiple Location Trip Planner Using Facebook Check-ins of a User. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions (ICTer '17). PDF DOI
  • S. Ganiachchi, S. Wijenayake, J. Wijekoon, S. Ahangama (2017). Creation of Semantic Location Profiles using Bayes, Rule-Based, Trees and Meta Classification Approaches. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Natural Computation, Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (ICNC-FSKD '17), 1604–1609. PDF DOI

For the complete and most current list, please see my Google Scholar profile.

Research Projects

Funded Project · ARC DECRA 2026 – 2029

Protecting Australia from Online Abuse: Making Online Safety Work for All (525,571 AUD)

Funded by the Australian Research Council under Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2026 (DECRA26). This project aims to design and evaluate novel safety features to protect vulnerable Australians from experiencing abuse on social media. By collaborating with affected users and experts in design and policy, the project expects to create user-centric, feasible safety features that move from reactive measures to preventive community-based interventions. Expected outcomes include validated prototypes demonstrating effective approaches, design guidelines for cross-platform implementation, policy recommendations ensuring adoption, and frameworks to assess future interventions. Benefits include advancing Australia’s online safety research and enhancing digital well-being of vulnerable users who rely on these platforms for social connectedness.

Funded Project · ACCAN 2024

Design Strategies and Policies to Protect Women and Gender-Diverse People from Technology-Facilitated Abuse (78,045 AUD)

Funded by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). This project investigates how women and gender-diverse users engage with social media safety features, to produce consumer-centric recommendations for effective online safety mechanisms.

Project Link
Funded Project · ACDICT 2024

Co-designing Inclusive Cybersecurity Curricula in Australian Higher Education (10,000 AUD)

Funded by the Australasian Council of Deans of Information & Communications Technology (ACDICT). This project aims to co-design Australian higher education cybersecurity curricula to incorporate intersectionality—considering gender, culture, and socioeconomic diversity—to improve engagement and retention of underrepresented student cohorts.

Funded Project · Instagram Research Awards 2021

Mitigating Cyberbullying Experiences of Younger Users on Instagram (75,000 AUD)

Funded by Instagram Research Awards. This project aims to understand and address the cyberbullying experiences of younger users, focusing on enhancing community health and safety on the platform.

PhD Study · Online Conformity

Identifying Contextual and Personal Determinants of Online Social Conformity

The first user study of my PhD investigating online social conformity. Examines how face-to-face conformity determinants — majority/minority composition, task objectivity, gender, self-confidence, personality — shape conformity behaviour in an online quiz.

Paper Quiz App Server
PhD Study · Gender & Conformity

Measuring Effects of Gender on Online Social Conformity

Investigates how majority/minority gender composition, gendered user cues (names and avatars), and gender-typed questions trigger gender-stereotypical conformity. Participants conformed more to majority-male groups on masculine questions and majority-female groups on feminine questions — and the effect was heightened with gendered avatars.

Paper Quiz App Server
PhD Study · Social Presence

Quantifying the Effect of Social Presence on Online Social Conformity

Investigates how social presence — manipulated via interactivity (discussion vs. none), response visibility (public vs. private), and user representation (generic vs. user-specific avatars) — impacts online conformity. Conformity was highest with peer discussions and public responses, suggesting higher social presence drives higher online conformity.

Paper Quiz App Confederates' App Server

Teaching & Academic Service

Unit Coordination

Academic Tutoring

Academic Mentorship

Certifications

Organising Committee

Reviewing

Awards & Scholarships

Honors & Awards

Best Paper Award

INTERACT '21 — IFIP TC13

For Quantifying the Effects of Age-related Stereotypes on Online Social Conformity.

Graduate Research Student of the Year 2021

Faculty of Engineering & IT, University of Melbourne

For inspiration, innovation, and support provided to the FEIT community.

Excellence in Tutoring Award 2019

School of Computing & Information Systems, University of Melbourne

In recognition of an excellent contribution to tutoring at CIS.

Best Paper Award

PAKDD '18

For A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting Recidivism in Domestic Violence.

Culture and Tourism Award

e-Swabhimani 2017

For the undergraduate research project TravelSL, a Facebook-based travel recommendation system.

Gold Award — Retail and Supply Chain Management

National Best Quality Software Awards 2017

For Tracified, a blockchain-based traceability solution for premium products.

Gold Medal

Faculty of IT, University of Moratuwa

Best Academic Performance in the Faculty of IT to date — Grade Point Average 4.15 / 4.20.

Most Outstanding Student of 2017

University of Moratuwa

For outstanding academic and research performance, voluntary work, and extra-curricular activities.

Scholarships

Grants

Voluntary Work

May 2015 – present

Motivational Speaker & Mentor

Career Guidance Unit, University of Moratuwa & high schools across Sri Lanka

Conducting offline and online motivational sessions for high-school and undergraduate students in Sri Lanka — creating awareness of higher-education opportunities and mentoring on the path to research and graduate study.

  • Online seminars to undergraduate students at University of Moratuwa on international higher-education opportunities (Nov 2018, Jun 2020, Jun 2021).
  • Seminars to rural schools in Sri Lanka on higher-education opportunities.
  • Mentoring high-school students at Visakha Vidyalaya, Sri Lanka, on their GCE A-Level IT projects.
Dec 2020 – Dec 2021

Secretary

Sri Lankan Graduates' Society, University of Melbourne

Postgraduate society affiliated with the Graduate Student Association — advocating for the welfare of Sri Lankan graduate students and organising cultural activities introducing Sri Lankan identity and heritage to the multicultural university community.

May 2019 – Dec 2020

Committee Member · Media & Communication

Sri Lankan Graduates' Society, University of Melbourne

Coordinated media and communications activities for the society's events and outreach.

Jan 2015 – Aug 2017

Editor in Chief — FIT Chronicle

Faculty of Information Technology, University of Moratuwa

Led the academic magazine of the Faculty of IT — a collaborative effort with faculty and students that revamped the magazine with renewed life and pride. Spotlighting faculty events, academic programs, student achievements and extracurriculars, with a new "students' corner" exhibiting student composing and artistic talent.

Editions: 2015 · 2016

Various

Conference Volunteering

CSCW 2020 · CIS Doctoral Colloquium 2018

Student volunteer at the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW '20); volunteer at the CIS Doctoral Colloquium 2018, University of Melbourne.