Prof Harshinie Karunarathna is a personal chair in the Zienkiewicz Centre for Computational Engineering of the College of Engineering of Swansea University, UK. She completed an BSc (Eng) in Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, an MSc in River Estuarine and Coastal Engineering at Imperial College, London and a PhD in Coastal Engineering at Saitama University, Japan. Her primary discipline of research and teaching is coastal and estuarine engineering.

Her main research focus is coastal hydro-morphodynamics and climate change impacts on the coastal zone. Her research has been supported by Research Councils UK and numerous other funding sources. She has published over 170 research articles in high impact international journals and peer-reviewed conference proceedings and supervised 14 PhD students to successful completion.

Harshinie currently leads the Energy and Environment Research group of the College of Engineering.