the MRtrix3 team

🧠 A Senior Research Officer at @TheFlorey, Dr Robert Smith @Lestropie has worked on developing sophisticated processing and reconstruction techniques for analysing image data, especially diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (#MRI) with a view to advance #BrainScience. One project he's been invovled in is #MRtrix3, a freely available #software package used for guiding clinical decision making in #neuroscience. "For instance, it’s used to determine surgical candidates and margins for brain tissue resection," Rob reports. One of their core analysis pipelines has been applied across a very broad spectrum of neurological disorders. The software was also used to investigate the effects of microgravity on brain microstructure and morphology. In the 5 years since the article decribing MRtrix3was published, 2,000 citations have been recorded. Having a low barrier to access and not requiring registration, though, the software has most certainly seen more usage. There are also nearly 2,000 accounts on the community forum, which is an under-estimate of the user base considering that registration is optional. Seeing the issues and feature requests coming from the community, it's natural for Rob to continually and diligently maintain the software. "I don’t think that I ever made a conscious decision of 'I’m going to maintain research software' ... When you have a personal investment in software you develop a vested interest in ensuring it does what it claims, does it well, and expands in its capabilities." Earlier this year, MRtrix3 was named a finalist for the 2024 ARDC-sponsored #Eureka Prize for Excellence in #ResearchSoftware. "It’s obviously great to have individual software projects recognised for their contribution to research, but for me the key impact of this award is the promotion of research software as a domain worthy of recognition. This prize is one of many steps to recognise software as a reportable and valuable output of research." 🔗 Read more about MRtrix3 and Rob's experience in the latest of our monthly interviews with leading research software engineers (#RSEs) in Australia > ardc.edu.au/article/shaping-… #ResearchSoftwareAU