ICMRM

Yang Xia initiated an Image Beauty Contest in 2007. The first award was conducted inside the caves of Feestgrot, Valkenburg, the Netherlands.

We all have those moments in the lab where nothing seems to be working. We just get some odd-looking images from our experiments – full of artifacts – that is our jargon. If you have not yet had one of these moments, you have not pushed your machine hard enough. Or occasionally, we need to generate some pretty looking images, to be used to impress potential students or visitors. So, one way or another, we all have these images that we do not know what to do with them. This contest is your chance to show off these images that otherwise would never see the light (i.e., be published). Actually getting a nice-looking image is not easy. It needs a deep understanding of NMR imaging, both in theory and in practice. It needs an appreciation of art. It also needs the personal character of a perfectionist.

Since this is a beauty contest, beauty has to be the most important criteria. In our language, the SNR matters; the resolution matters; the image contrast matters; and artifact and distortion matters. Most of all, the overall artistic impression matters. In a way, if you think that your image is worth being framed and hanged on the wall of someone's living room, you have a wining entry. Entries are made anonymously at the ICMRM conference.

List of winners

Year	Name	Image
2019	Stefan Benders RWTH Aachen University, D // NYU, New York, USA
2017	Krzysztof Kłodowski AGH University of Science and Technology, PL
	Mick Mantle Cambridge University, UK
2015	Maria Muravyeva Nizhni Novgorod State University, RUS
2013	Maria Pia Herrling KIT, D
2011	Nian Wang USA
2009	Hilary Fabich Montana State University, USA
	Igor Koptyug ITC, RUS
2007	Melanie Britton University of Birmingham, UK