About

I am a Scientist II at Allen Institute. I develop computational methods (e.g. feature selection, dimensionality reduction, segmentation, source separation, graph analysis) to analyze single cell genomic, microscopy imaging, and time-series datasets with the broad goal of understanding function, diversity, and inter-relationships of brain cells.

I obtained a Ph.D. in Physics from Northeastern University, where I worked in the Neurogeometry lab. As part of my thesis, I developed computational tools NCTracer and BoutonAnalyzer to quantify neuronal structures from light microscopy images. I also worked on theoretical models of associative learning aimed at explaining statistical features of connectivity in the cortex. Prior to that, I obtained a B.Tech. & M.Tech. in Engineering Physics from IIT Bombay.

📩 Email / 📒 Google Scholar / 🐙 Github / 🐦 Twitter

Research

I’m broadly interested in developing and applying principled computational tools to understand biological phenomena.

PROPOSE: 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