Short Bio

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Central Florida. I earned my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida. My doctoral dissertation, titled ”High-Performance Computational Kernels for Algorithm-System Co-Design in Machine Learning: Enabling Efficient GCN Training and LLM Inference Serving,” was completed under the supervision of Dr. Jun Wang at the Computer Systems Architecture and Data Science Lab.

I have developed a strong foundation in Large Language Models (LLMs) and Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs). My research focuses on the hardware-software co-design of Machine Learning systems. I hold an M.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Central Florida and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University. I earned my bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering with a minor in mathematics from Louisiana Tech University.

Ph.D.
EE - UCF 2025
ML & Sys
LLMs & GCNs
5+
Publications
13+
Courses Taught

Education

University of Central Florida Orlando, FL
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering — Dec. 2025
M.S. in Computer Engineering — Dec. 2024
Louisiana Tech University Ruston, LA
M.S. in Electrical Engineering — May 2020
B.S. in Electrical Engineering (Minor in Mathematics) — May 2016

Research Interests

High-Performance GPU Kernels

Writing and tuning low-level CUDA/computational kernels for sparse operations.

Hardware-Software Co-Design

Building full-stack co-designed mechanisms to run heavy ML systems efficiently.

Out-of-Core GCN Training

Designing memory bounded data reuse structures for GCN training in hardware-contained environments.

Fault Tolerance in LLMs

Creating lightweight shadow checkpointing systems for reliable real-time LLM inference serving.

Computer Architecture

Investigating data pathways, caching paradigms, and microarchitectural bottlenecks in modern GPUs.

Energy-efficient AI Accelerators

Co-optimizing computational speed and thermal dissipation in accelerator chips.

Publications

MLSys ’26 Conference on Machine Learning and Systems

GhostServe: A Lightweight Checkpointing System in the Shadow for Fault-Tolerant LLM Serving

Jayakody, S.*, Zhao Y.*, Nehate, C., & Wang, J. (* Equal contribution.)

Accepted, publication pending  •  arXiv:2605.00831

ICMLA ’25 IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications

EdgeProfiler: A Fast Profiling Framework for Lightweight LLMs on Edge Using Analytical Model

Pinnock, A*, Jayakody, S.*, Roxy, K. A., & Ahmed, Md. R. (* Equal contribution.)

pp. 814-819, doi: 10.1109/ICMLA66185.2025.00119  •  arXiv:2506.09061

ASAP ’25 IEEE Int. Conf. on Application-specific Systems, Architectures and Processors

AIRES: Accelerating Out-of-Core GCNs via Algorithm-System Co-Design

Jayakody, S., Zhao Y., & Wang, J.

pp. 1-8, doi: 10.1109/ASAP65064.2025.00011  •  arXiv:2507.02006

MLArchSys ’24 Machine Learning for Computer Architecture and Systems Workshop

Peridot: Accelerating Out-of-Core GCN Data Reuse Pattern and Co-Design on GPU

Jayakody, S., & Wang, J.

OpenReview

CIC ’23 IEEE International Conference on Collaboration and Internet Computing

EMBARK: Memory Bounded Architectural Improvement in CSR-CSC Sparse Matrix Multiplication

Jayakody, S., & Wang, J.

pp. 8-17, doi: 10.1109/CIC58953.2023.00012  •  NSF PAR

Instructor & Teaching Assistant

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Central Florida

  • Electrical and Computer Engineering Design Lab Summer 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025
  • Embedded Systems Lab Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Summer 2023, Spring 2024
  • Computer Organization Lab Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Summer 2024
  • Electronics I Lab Fall 2021
  • Digital Systems Lab Fall 2020, Summer 2021
  • Introduction to Deep Learning Spring 2025
  • Engineering Applications of Intelligent Systems Spring 2025
  • Massive Storage and Big Data Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2024
  • Topics in Machine Learning Fall 2024
  • Engineering Analysis and Computation Spring 2021, Summer 2021, Fall 2022
  • Computer Organization Fall 2023
  • Digital Signal Processing Fundamentals Summer 2023
  • Computer Architecture Fall 2021

News & Updates

Jan. 2026

Paper accepted at MLSys '26 from Computer Systems Architecture and Data Science Lab.

Dec. 2025

Graduated with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida.

Oct. 2025

Postdoctoral research position accepted at Computer Systems Architecture and Data Science Lab (6 months contract).

Sep. 2025

Paper accepted at IEEE ICMLA '25.

May 2025

Paper accepted at IEEE ASAP '25 from Computer Systems Architecture and Data Science Lab.

Dec. 2024

Graduated with an MSc. Computer Engineering from the University of Central Florida.

Aug. 2024

Passed Ph.D. candidacy exam.

May 2024

Paper accepted at MLArchSys '24 from Computer Systems Architecture and Data Science Lab.

Nov. 2023

Passed Ph.D. qualifying exam.

Sep. 2023

Paper accepted at IEEE CIC ’23 from Computer Systems Architecture and Data Science Lab.

May 2020

Graduated with an MSc. Electrical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University.