Monash scientist’s imaging software work earns new fellowship
The research we do here at the Monash BDI is in part supported by the use of platforms such as Monash Micro-Imaging (MMI), a world-class optical imaging core facility. Achievements like that of Dr Juan Nunez-Iglesias, detailed below, highlight the continuing excellence of this platform and its staff.
An unconventional funding scheme co-launched by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan has homed in on a Monash University scientist and offered to fund his work on imaging software that aids biomedical researchers worldwide.
Dr Juan Nunez-Iglesias, a Bioimage Analysis Research Fellow at Monash Micro Imaging (MMI), has become one of three Imaging Software Fellows chosen by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to work on open-source software projects to improve image analysis and visualisation in biomedicine.
He will receive a full salary for three years and travel expenses to maintain and further develop scikit-image, a community-driven project amassing algorithms for image processing. It is free of charge or restrictions, and is used across domains of science from biomedicine to astronomy.
Dr Juan Nunez-Iglesias said such software was essential in the fast-moving world of biomedical research.
“Biomedicine has joined astronomy as a discipline generating more image data than researchers can examine, let alone annotate. It thus requires automated analysis as provided by scikit-image,” Dr Nunez-Iglesias said.
Dr Nunez-Iglesias is one of 285 contributing developers. He contributed to scikit-image voluntarily as part of his research for more than six years and has been helping Monash biologists analyse their data using scikit-image and Fiji (another project now supported by CZI)since he joined the MMI in April 2018.
He said he was initially surprised at CZI's approach to scikit-image founder Stéfan van der Walt and himself.
“Three years of guaranteed funding really lets us take a longer view of scikit-image development, rather than fixing the many small issues that arise from its daily use by thousands of users,” Dr Nunez-Iglesias said.
“Further, development of a package like scikit-image requires very diverse expertise, so the generous travel funding will enable us to seek out help from the most appropriate person for every feature we want to develop in the coming years,” he said.
Dr Nunez-Iglesias’ considerable experience in managing scikit-image, expertise in Python programming (used by scikit-image), the fact that he worked at an institute, and had published papers about the software all contributed to his selection.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was launched in December 2015 by Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, and Priscilla Chan, a paediatrician and founder and CEO of The Primary School in East Palo Alto.
About the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute
Committed to making the discoveries that will relieve the future burden of disease, the newly established Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University brings together more than 120 internationally-renowned research teams. Our researchers are supported by world-class technology and infrastructure, and partner with industry, clinicians and researchers internationally to enhance lives through discovery.