Imaging Without Borders Summer School

Welcome

The Imaging without Borders (IMAGINE) Summer School Faculty welcomes you to summer school event website!

Here you will find more information about the objectives of the event, the speakers and the schedule. You will also be able to register and attend the event, virtually from this website.

Program Overview

Imaging without Borders (IMAGINE) summer school is a hybrid training initiative of the Consortium for Advancement of MRI Education and Research in Africa (CAMERA). The summer school is designed to provide skills training to biomedical engineers and MR imaging personnel working in MRI hardware and scanner maintenance in Low- and Middle-income countries (LMICs) in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia or clinicians and researchers interested in low-field and accessible imaging. IMAGINE implements RAD-AID’s Teach-Try-Use strategy, applied in CAMERA’s SPARK AI training program, to rapidly provide MR hardware and engineering competencies in resource-limited settings. In keeping with CAMERA’s training model, IMAGINE will use a combination of case-based and hands-on learning approaches to train a team of engineers, physicists, clinicians, and researchers who will work together as a network to grow their skills and collectively train others. IMAGINE is focused on training next-generation imaging innovators on how to use design thinking strategies and user-centered problem-solving skills to create low-cost open-source tools that will sustainably democratize diagnostic imaging and make it readily accessible to all.

The Pliot Training Program

The pilot training program will build the knowledge and skills set for creating low-cost and open-source MRI scanners that can be readily assembled for use in Africa and other LMICs. Given the dearth of pre-clinical biomedical imaging research in Africa, critical for disease mechanistic studies and drug development, the first IMAGINE summer school will focus on building two portable open-source MRI systems for rodent brain imaging. The first program is in collaboration with the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre at Montreal Neurological Institute, MRI Uganda, and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Stellenbosch University and supported by the McGill University Doctoral Internship Program and Global Mobility Awards. Thirty biomedical engineering, imaging physics, and neuroscience trainees and clinicians from institutions and imaging centers in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America will be trained in the first IMAGINE summer school to construct two pre-clinical brain MRI systems at McGill University and Stellenbosch University. The curriculum was developed in consultation with leading experts in the field.

The pilot IMAGINE summer school will run from May 26th to August 2nd, 2025, with the goal of producing a team of innovators who will take user-centered designs to assemble portable pre-clinical MRI systems equipped with open-source acquisition and signal analysis components. The summer school will introduce concepts of design thinking, reverse innovation, and user-centered technology development, and provide practical hands-on training on MRI hardware, pulse programming, signal processing and quality assurance. Demonstrations on best practices for MRI technology development and pre-clinical imaging, along with open science and knowledge translation skills will be provided to guide participants to produce a functional MRI system and share their knowledge through publication of a toolkit. We anticipate that our training program will offer engineers and imaging personnel working in resource constrained settings, the power of experience to produce local sustainable innovations that will advance access to valuable MRI within their respective regions.

Objectives

The main objectives of the IMAGINE Summer School are:

1. Build standard skills in MR hardware development and maintenance.

2. Upscale and advance the MRI knowledge of biomedical engineers, physicists, and imaging personnel practicing in resource constrained settings.

3. Provide an experiential learning environment for development of innovative imaging solutions for resource constrained settings.

4. Train and retrain local experts who will sustainably advance the practice of MRI in LMICs.

5. Create a collaborative culture and a network of imaging innovators in LMICs.

6. Contribute to reproducible open-science efforts of the global imaging community.

Eligibility

The program is open to students, postdoctoral fellows or early career researchers in biomedical/electrical/mechanical engineering, or in physics, computer science, neuroscience, and veterinary sciences, and residents in the discipline of radiology, who:

Are registered students, residents or fellows at an African, South Asian, Latin American, or Canadian Institution.
Is an academic faculty within 5 years of appointment at an African, South Asian, Latin American, or Canadian Institution.
Is an academic staff at an African, South Asian, Latin American, or Canadian bioimaging facility.
Can commit to completing all activities on time and actively participate in each session.
Can attend the build-lab on-site or virtually, full-time for the entire two weeks.
Are self-motivated and team players.

Application process

How to Apply:

Visit the How to Apply page and complete the application, include a 50-word essay on why you want to participate and a 1-page CV summarizing your MRI research, engineering, neuroscience, or biomedical imaging experience.