Yevin Goonatilake, a 16-year-old from Leesburg, continues his remarkable academic journey with another impressive milestone. When he crosses the stage at George Mason University’s EagleBank Arena on May 15, Goonatilake will become the school’s youngest master’s degree graduate.
“I’m proud to hold onto the record for the time being,” Goonatilake said in a statement. “I’m sure it will be broken in the future, but it’s nice to be George Mason’s youngest ever master’s graduate for now.”
Yevin Goonatilake’s Academic Journey
Just last December, the then 15-year-old made history as the youngest person to earn a GMU bachelor’s degree with a 4.0 GPA. “Doing things earlier than other people is what I’ve been doing my entire life. Personally, I think more people could do it if they want to,” Goonatilake said. “You don’t have to follow the general trend. That’s not necessarily for everybody,” he said of the accomplishment.
Goonatilake is the child of two computer science engineers who saw that he was gifted in mathematics at around age 3. After homeschooling, Goontilake enrolled at Northern Virginia Community College and earned his associate’s degree in 2023 with a 4.0 GPA. He then enrolled at GMU at age 13 in the school’s bachelor’s/accelerated master’s program in the College of Engineering and Computing.
As a master’s student research assistant, he is working on cryptography and large language models. His current focus is cryptographic watermarking, or embedding hidden signals in artificial intelligence-generated content to identify its source.
Despite his demanding academic schedule, Goonatilake also plays minor league cricket for the Baltimore Royals Sunny Sohail (BRSS) Cricket Academy. He also got his learner’s permit in January, and is looking forward to having a driver’s license soon.
Goonatilake hopes to continue his studies at George Mason and pursue a Ph.D in computer science.
Feature image of Yevin Goonatilake by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding
