Ryan Ly

Biography

Ryan Ly, PhD, is a Research Affiliate at ICSI and a Senior Research Software Engineer in the Computational Biosciences Group of the Scientific Data Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Dr. Ly’s research focuses on data interoperability and reusability, including the development of scientific data standards, modeling frameworks, and analysis tools that enable scientists to share, integrate, and analyze diverse datasets at scale, with a growing focus on applications of AI for science. He is the Technical Lead of the Neurodata Without Borders (NWB) data standard and software ecosystem for neurophysiology, used by more than 150 labs worldwide, and he leads its dissemination and integration with community tools. He has contributed to and led the development of software including PyNWB, HDMF, NWB GUIDE, and LINDI, and he develops JAMO V2, a high-throughput data management system for genomic data produced by the DOE Joint Genome Institute.

More broadly, Dr. Ly is interested in building sustainable, community-driven software and data infrastructure that makes scientific research more open, reproducible, and accessible to both humans and AI systems. Dr. Ly received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Princeton University and M.S.E. in computer science from Johns Hopkins University.

Publications

Selected Honors & Awards

• R&D 100 Award for the development of NWB, 2019

Areas of Expertise

• Human-AI Collaboration and Teaming
• Agentic AI (Autonomous AI Agents)
• AI in Healthcare, Biomedicine, and Life Sciences
• Software Engineering, DevOps, and Continuous Integration
• Databases, Data Management, and Storage Systems
• Big Data Analytics, Pipelines, and Infrastructure
• Computational Biology, Genomics, and Bioinformatics
• Open Data, FAIR Data Principles, and Research Transparency
• Open-Source Software, Tools, and Collaborative Platforms
• Interoperability, Standards, and Data Sharing Frameworks