Shalini's main areas of interest are the rhetoric of health and medicine, rhetoric of science, and disability studies. Within these fields, she is keen to consider the rhetorical nature of classification regarding health conditions and the process of how something comes to be regarded as a medical condition when it previously was not. Her particular focus is eating disorders in Sri Lanka.

Selected Publications

• Dead matter: COVID-19 and the banning of burials in Sri Lanka. Book chapter in volume titled Envisioning Embodiment in the Health Humanities: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature, Culture, and Media published by Palgrave/Springer, 2024, pp. 181-197. Editors: Jodi Cressman, Lisa DeTora, Jeannie Ludlow, and Nora Peterson.
• "Universal assessment: Reflections on Equitable Evaluations in a Sri Lankan Higher Education Classroom". University of Colombo Review (New Series lll), 2(1), May 2021, Colombo, pp. 102 - 118.
• "“She’s too much!”: Student Perspectives on Participation in Pedagogical Humour". Nivedini, Journal of Gender Studies, Women’s Education and Research Centre (WERC), Vol. 22, December 2018, Colombo, pp. 95-109.