About

I am a Scientist III at Allen Institute. I develop machine learning models and tools (e.g. representation learning, generative modeling, multimodal integration, feature selection, image segmentation, source separation, graph analysis etc.) to uncover cellular organization of mammalian brains using large-scale sequencing and imaging datasets (scRNA-seq, Multiome, Patch-seq, Retro-seq, MERFISH, light microscopy, fiber photometry).

I previously obtained a Ph.D. in Physics from Northeastern University as a member of the Neurogeometry lab. Prior to that, I obtained a B.Tech. & M.Tech. in Engineering Physics from IIT Bombay.

📩 Email / 📒 Google Scholar / 🐙 Github

Research highlights

Joint inference of discrete cell types and continuous type-specific variability in single-cell datasets with MMIDAS | code
Nature Computational Science 2024
Y Marghi, R Gala, F Baftizadeh, U Sümbül

Predictive and robust probe selection for spatial transcriptomics | code
Nature Communications (accepted) 2023
I Covert, R Gala, T Wang, K Svoboda, U Sümbül, S Lee.

Consistent cross-modal identification of cortical neurons with coupled autoencoders | ⚡️ News & Views | code
Nature Computational Science 2021
R Gala, A Budzillo, F Baftizadeh, J Miller, N Gouwens, A Arkhipov, G Murphy, B Tasic, H Zeng, M Hawrylycz, U Sümbül.

A coupled autoencoder approach for multi-modal analysis of cell types | code
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 2019
R Gala, N Gouwens, Z Yao, A Budzillo, O Penn, B Tasic, G Murphy, H Zeng, U Sümbül.

Single-cell transcriptomic evidence for dense intracortical neuropeptide networks | code
eLife 2019
S Smith, U Sümbül, L Graybuck, F Collman, S Seshamani, R Gala, O Gliko, L Elabbady, J Miller, T Bakken, J Rossier, Z Yao, E Lein, H Zeng, B Tasic, M Hawrylycz.

Computer assisted detection of axonal bouton structural plasticity in in vivo time-lapse images | code
eLife 2017
R Gala, D Lebrecht, DA Sahlender, A Jorstad, G Knott, A Holtmaat, A Stepanyants

Effects of homeostatic constraints on associative memory storage and synaptic connectivity of cortical circuits
Frontiers in computational neuroscience 2015
J Chapeton, R Gala, A Stepanyants

Active learning of neuron morphology for accurate automated tracing of neurites
Frontiers in neuroanatomy 2014
R Gala, J Chapeton, J Jitesh, C Bhavsar, A Stepanyants

Size ratio universality in chaotic systems
International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos 2012
R Gala, P Parmananda