Ravi Allada is the executive director of the University of Michigan Neuroscience Institute. He was previously the chair of the neurobiology department at Northwestern University. Allada received his M.D from the University of Michigan and completed a residency in clinical pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. During his training, he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Scholar and an HHMI Physician Postdoctoral Fellow, the latter with 2017 Nobel Laureate Michael Rosbash.

Allada’s laboratory has discovered molecule “gears” of the core circadian clock, including a link to neurodegenerative disease, as well as pathways linking the core clock to daily rhythms of sleep and wake. His laboratory has also identified molecular processes underlying sleep, including those associated with memory processing. His work extends discoveries in flies to mammals, including the development of diagnostic biomarker signatures for circadian time and examining the effects of jet lag on athletic performance.

Allada’s research has been funded by the NIH, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), as well as private foundations, including a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award (from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation). He has served as a member of the NIH Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board and on the Board of Directors as secretary for the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Sleep Research Society.