Automated Image Management and Metadata Annotation (AIMM) User Group

The AIMM User Group brings together researchers to share experiences to enable rapid dissemination and uptake of best practices and open-source tools for the automated management and metadata annotation of image data and therefore facilitate the quality, reproducibility and re-use of results of microscopy experiments.

• Meetings are held on the first Friday of the month, every other month.
• Events are co-organized and hosted by Drs. Caterina Strambio De Castillia and Judith Lacoste
• Watch Past Meeting Presentations on YouTube Here!

Next meeting: 2026.04.17-Komala Shivanna, (Identifyn)

@ 10 am CT (GMT/UTC- 6.0)/ 11 am ET (GMT/UTC-5.0)/ 5 pm CET (GMT/UTC+1.0)

This group is open to anyone interested, including all career stages and levels of experience and expertise with data management and metadata annotation.

The emphasis of the meeting will be on participants to share both challenges and solutions towards making data management and quality control a routine practice in the field of light microscopy.

We particularly wish to encourage imaging facility users and other imaging scientist to share day-to-day challenges they face during their routine work to manage image data to help inform developers building tools to maximize:

• Usability
• Customization
• Added value
• Automation

All products of this user-group will be made available to the community!

Past Presentations/Meetings

• 2026.03.06 – Stop Reinventing the Protocol: MicroHub, a Searchable Hub for Microscopy Knowledge presentation by Hannah Somers (Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory)
• 2026.02.06 – “Galaxy” as a web-accessible, reproducible, and transparent platform for image analysis presentation by Riccardo Massei (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research)
• 2025.12.05 – Drop in Community Conversation 
• 2025.11.7 – The Linked Data Modeling Language (LinkML) A framework for describing and integrating data presentation by Sierra Moxon (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
• 2025.10.23 – Drop-in Community Q&A Session
• 2025.09.05
  • “Intersection of RRIDs and imaging, how do we fit together?” – Presentation by Anita Bandrowski (UC San Diego)
  • “Use of PIDs in Systems to Organize Facility Data“- Presentation by Nate Herzog (Vermont Biomedical Research Network)
  • “RRIDs: What are they? Why do they exist? What do they and don’t they cover?” – Presentations by Amanda French (Research Organization Registry, Crossref)
• 2025.06.06 – “The importance of metadata beyond the microscope and the lab” Presentation by Anthony Asmar (National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST)
• 2025.04.04 – Open Discussion
• 2025.02.06 – Presentation from Julio Mateos-Langerak, Montpellier Ressources Imagerie, BioCampus, University of Montpellier, CNRS, INSERM
• 2024.10.04 – Presentation by Katy Wolstencroft, Leiden Univeristy, on the FAIRDOMHub
• 2024.06.07 – Alex Rigano, Worcester-Image Data Management, UMass Chan Medical School, on the “UMass and Canada BioImaging Automated OMERO Importer and Metadata Annotator”. (More Info)
• 2024.04.05 – Presentation from Jens Wendt, Imaging Network – Mikroskopie, Muenster Universität and NFDI4BioImage, on the “User friendly Image metadata annotation tool/workflow for OMERO“
• 2024.02.02 – Presentation from Stefanie Weidtkamp-Peters, Director of the Center for Advanced Imaging (CAi), Heinrich Heine Universität Dusseldorf, on “RDM4mic and I3D:bio: a journey to FAIR microscopy data”
• 2023.12.01 – Presentations from:
  • Christian Schmidt, German Cancer Research Center and NFDI4BioImage, & Tom Boissonnet, Center for Advanced Imaging (CAi), Heinrich Heine Universität Dusseldorf, on OMERO annotations – introducing I3Dbio (More Info: Zenodo & YouTube Playlist)
  • Sarah Arena and Allison Maier, Laboratory of System Pharmacology of Harvard Medical School, presenting on Cyclic Immunofluorescence (CyCIF) data and metadata management (More Info)
    
• 2023.10.06 – Presentations sharing challenges and solutions from:
  • Zbigniew Mikulski, Microscopy and Histology Core, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, on “Metadata in histology and microscopy” (More Info)
  • Ken Ho, Advanced Light Microscopy core, The Francis Crick Institute, on “Systematic annotation of images – work in progress” (More Info)
•  2023.08.04 – Presentations from: Judith Lacoste, MIA CellaVie, and Caterina Strambio-De-Castillia, UMass Chan Medical School, on “Research Data Management (RDM) challenges based on the Canada BioImaging (CBI) experience” (More Info)
• 2023.05.12 – Kick-Off Meeting

Partners

This series of meetings is organized by Canada BioImaging (CBI) and BioImaging North America (BINA), with the support of the following community partners:

If you are interested in partnering in this effort contact us at contact@bioimagingna.org.