Ishini received her B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Chemistry from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, where she also conducted undergraduate research on developing a novel method for trace-level antibiotic detection using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). After graduation, she worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Department of Science for Technology, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, conducting laboratory sessions in Chemistry and Statistics.

She joined the Ph.D. program at the University of Oklahoma in Fall 2024. During her first year, she worked on redox potential calculations of biologically relevant iron-sulfur clusters using broken-symmetry DFT and QM/MM methods. This work focused on understanding the influence of electrostatic environments on redox behavior within protein matrices.

Her current research focuses on the photochemical behavior of organic dye molecules at interfaces using quantum chemistry and dynamics methods. Her aim is to understand how molecular environments influence excited-state processes and energy relaxation pathways.