A PhD student in Chemistry at the University of Florida, specializing in theoretical and computational chemistry. My research interests include computational methods for drug discovery, machine learning-guided molecular property prediction, and the application of artificial intelligence to chemical and biological systems. I am currently contributing to the Molecular Dynamics Data Bank America (MDDBa) project and actively engaged in developing and benchmarking machine-learned force fields for biomolecular simulations.
University of Florida, USA
Molecular Dynamics Data Bank America (MDDBa)
Contributing to the establishment of MDDBa, the first MDDB node outside Europe and the first in the United States, as part of the Perez Lab at the University of Florida. Current work includes data curation, infrastructure development, and interoperability efforts to expand global access to molecular dynamics simulation data.
Lab: Molecular Recognition Group (Perez Lab)
University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Investigation of the effects of selected hydrotropes on the solubility of drug-like molecules from Sri Lankan flora: a computational approach
Investigated the hydrotropic activity of pyrogallol and resorcinol on selected bioactive drug-like molecules sourced from Sri Lankan flora, with the aim of characterizing their solubility-enhancing mechanisms at the molecular level. Performed extensive molecular dynamics simulations using GROMACS with the KBFF20 force field at 300 K and 1 bar to model aqueous hydrotrope-solute interactions. Authored custom Fortran 95 programs for automated system preparation, cluster separation analysis, and free-molecule concentration calculations. The study demonstrated that pyrogallol exhibited stronger hydrotropic effects than resorcinol for the selected molecules.
Supervisor: Prof. Samantha Weerasinghe
University of Florida, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
GPA: 4.00/4.00
University of Colombo, Faculty of Science
GPA: 3.70/4.00
First Class Honors
Ananda College, Colombo, Sri Lanka
A/L (2017): Biology A, Chemistry B, Physics B | Z Score: 1.6644
O/L (2014): Nine Distinctions
Imesh Ranaweera, Alberto Perez. Beyond Classical Force Fields: Physics-Driven Assessment of the Grappa Machine-Learned Force Field on the FoldBind Dataset.
ChemPhysChem, 2025.
I.C.M. Ranaweera, S. Weerasinghe. Investigation of the effects of selected hydrotropes on the solubility of drug-like molecules from Sri Lankan flora: a computational approach.
79th Annual Scientific Sessions, Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS), 2023.
Beyond Classical Force Fields: Physics-Driven Assessment of the Grappa Machine-Learned Force Field on the FoldBind Dataset
CINEC International Research Symposium 2026, CINEC Campus, Sri Lanka
Beyond Classical Force Fields: Physics-Driven Assessment of the Grappa Machine-Learned Force Field on the FoldBind Dataset
University of Florida, USA
Investigation of the effects of selected hydrotropes on the solubility of drug-like molecules from Sri Lankan flora: a computational approach
University of Florida, USA
Biochemistry of Human Hair
University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Team interview of Prof. Rodolphe Barrangou for CH 4002 Seminar and Essay
University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Fortran 95 program to simulate a model salt in liquid argon for CH 3032 Computational Programming in Chemistry
University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Python, Fortran, SQL
AMBER, GROMACS, MELD, AlphaFold, BioEmu & aSAM, MDANCE, Gaussian 09W, GaussView 5.0, RasMol, RasWin, PyMOL, VMD, ChimeraX, Xmgrace, HyperChem Professional, WinMopac 7.21, ChemDraw, BURAI, ORCA
Claude Code, Codex, Opencode
Practical computational chemistry, qualitative and quantitative analysis of inorganic and organic compounds, basic synthetic organic chemistry techniques, basic characterization techniques, fundamental physical chemistry experiments
Centrifuge machine, UV-Vis Spectrometer, pH meter, Water bath sonicator
Linux, macOS, Windows
English, Sinhala
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS)
Research Security Training (Combined), CITI Program, 2026
Research Security Training, CITI Program, 2026
Physical and Natural Sciences Responsible Conduct of Research, CITI Program, 2026
Fundamentals of Deep Learning, NVIDIA, 2026
Supervised Machine Learning: Regression and Classification, DeepLearning.AI, 2024
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, IBM, 2023
Drug Discovery, University of California San Diego, 2023
Introduction to Quantum Computing, Udemy, 2023
IELTS (2022-08-26): Overall 6.5 | Listening 6.5, Reading 6.5, Writing 6.0, Speaking 7.0
Cricket
Hockey
Swimming
Badminton
Dr. Alberto Perez
Associate Professor and William R. Kenan, Jr. Term Professor; Associate Director, Quantum Theory Project
Department of Chemistry, University of Florida, USA
Email: perez@chem.ufl.edu
