Dr Ajani De Vas Gunasekara

Lecturer in Mathematics
Ph.D. Pure Mathematics, Monash (2022); M.Sc. Mathematics, Central Florida (2018), B.Sc. Hons. Mathematics, Peradeniya (2015)

Email: ajani.de.vas.gunasekara@nd.edu.au

  • Biography

    Dr Ajani De Vas Gunasekara is a Lecturer in Mathematics in the School of Arts & Sciences at The University of Notre Dame Australia. She completed her PhD in Pure Mathematics at Monash University in 2022, and has over 10 years of university teaching experience across Sri Lanka, the USA and Australia. Her research centres on combinatorial design theory, graph decompositions, and interdisciplinary applications of discrete mathematics, with a focus on how mathematical structures can enhance human life and thinking. Her work has been published in leading high quality journals.

    Dr De Vas Gunasekara is currently developing three complementary research pillars: 1. Structure and symmetry in combinatorial designs, including completion, embedding and extremal problems. 2. Graph-theoretic methods for health and epidemiological research, in collaboration with the Institute for Health Research. 3. Arts and mathematics education intersections, particularly the use of combinatorial structures to foster learning, creativity, and equity.

  • Teaching areas

    Dr Ajani De Vas Gunasekara teaches and coordinates nationally across a broad range of undergraduate and postgraduate mathematics units, mostly in online modes. Her teaching approach emphasises conceptual clarity, inclusive curriculum design, and support for students from diverse academic backgrounds and age groups. She integrates interactive teaching methods, structured problem-solving, visual representations, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to foster engagement and develop students’ mathematical thinking, particularly in fully online settings.

    At The University of Notre Dame Australia, Dr De Vas Gunasekara is the national coordinator and lecturer for key mathematics units, including Statistics, Principles of Mathematics, Mathematics for Computer Science, and Discrete Mathematics, delivered across Sydney, Fremantle, and Open Universities Australia (OUA).

  • Research Expertise and Supervision

      Dr Ajani De Vas Gunasekara is available to supervise Honours and Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students in areas aligned with her research expertise. She welcomes students interested in:
    • Combinatorial design theory (completion, embedding, symmetry, resolvability). Graph theory and graph decompositions.
    • Mathematics and the arts, particularly projects exploring mathematics and poetry, combinatorial structures in creative writing, and humanistic mathematics education.
      • She is also available to co-supervise interdisciplinary projects involving mathematics education, mathematical creativity, and the use of combinatorial methods to support learning and engagement and health research. Prospective HDR students are encouraged to contact her at: ajani.de.vas.gunasekara@nd.edu.au

  • Journal articles and proceedings

      • A. De Vas Gunasekara and M. W. W. Lo, Poetry of Repetition: Constructing Verse through Combinatorial Design Theory. Journal of Mathematics and the Arts (2026). Scimago JR Q2. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcd.22003
      • A. De Vas Gunasekara and D. Horsley, Completing partial k-star designs. Journal of Combinatorial Designs, 1–10 (2025). Scimago JR Q1/Q2. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcd.22003
      • A. De Vas Gunasekara and A. Devillers, Transitive path decompositions of Cartesian products of complete graphs, Designs, Codes and Cryptography, vol. 92, no. 12, pp. 4231–4245 (2024). Scimago JR Q1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-024-01493-9
      • A. De Vas Gunasekara and D. Horsley, Smaller embeddings of partial k-star decompositions, The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics. 30(1) (2023), 1.19–. 05C51 (05C70) Scimago JR Q1.  https://doi.org/10.37236/10759
      • A. De Vas Gunasekara and D. Horsley, An Evans-style result for block designs, SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics 36(1) (2022), 47–63. Scimago JR Q1. https://doi.org/10.1137/20M1373219
      • D. Bryant, A. De Vas Gunasekara and D. Horsley, On determining when small embeddings of partial Steiner triple systems exist, Journal of Combinatorial Designs. 28 (2020), 568–579. Scimago JR Q1/Q2. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcd.21715

  • Professional affiliations

    • Member of Australian Mathematical Society
    • Member of Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia.
    • Former member of American Mathematical Society.

  • Community Engagement

    Dr Ajani De Vas Gunasekara is deeply committed to advancing public engagement with mathematics, supporting equity in STEM, and mentoring the next generation of mathematicians. She regularly contributes to national mathematics outreach through mentoring programs, student prize panels, peer review, and conference-led discussions on gender equity, career balance, and pathways in the mathematical sciences.

    Her engagement extends beyond academia through long-term mentoring of undergraduate students, contributions to mathematics workshops for schoolchildren, and participation in community-focused educational and charitable initiatives. She is passionate about widening participation in mathematics and supporting learners from diverse backgrounds, with a strong belief in the transformative role mathematics can play in education, creativity, and society.

  • Awards

    • WIMSIG Cheryl E. Praeger Travel Awards - 2023.
    • Australian Mathematical Society Lift-off Fellowship - 2022.
    • Monash University Postgraduate Publications Award - 2022.
    • Monash University: International tuition sponsorship and graduate scholarship, 2018-2022.
    • University of Central Florida Mathematics Master's thesis award - 2019.
    • University of Central Florida: Graduate Teaching Assistantship and tuition waiver, 2016- 2018.
    • University of Peradeniya: University Award for academic Excellence in 2015.