Michael Hanke
Group Lead at Forschungszentrum Jülich
Greater Leipzig Area Germany
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolMichael Hanke is an experienced research software engineer and group lead with 19 years bridging neuroscience, psychology, and data engineering from Greater Leipzig. He leads the Psychoinformatics group at Forschungszentrum Jülich and holds a professorship, applying deep domain knowledge in brain imaging and data management to reproducible research workflows. A long-time open-source contributor and Debian developer, he has made substantive backend contributions to flagship neuroimaging projects such as nibabel, nipype and datalad, improving file-format handling, interfaces for FSL/FAST tools, and test-suite modernization. His work uniquely blends rigorous academic training (PhD in Psychology) with production-grade Python engineering and distributed-computing experience, enabling reliable, scalable neuroimaging pipelines. Notably, he sustains NeuroDebian-related efforts that make complex neuroimaging software broadly accessible to researchers.
19 years of coding experience
4 years of employment as a software developer
Ph.D., Psychology, Ph.D., Psychology at Otto-von-Guericke University MagdeburgDiploma, Psychology, Diploma, Psychology at The Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg
English, German
Stackoverflow
63reputation
242reached
3answers
0questions
Github Skills (24)
python10
testing10
workflow-engine10
refactor10
numpy10
fs10
nifti10
neuroimaging10
refactoring10
image-processing9
git9
memory-mapping9
big-data9
data-structures8
c178
Programming languages (15)
Github contributions (5)
datalad/datalad
Feb 2015 - Oct 2022
Keep code, data, containers under control with git and git-annex
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:6 releases, 648 reviews, 5108 commits in 7 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Michael primarily worked on code changes related to refactoring existing tests and helpers by replacing references to a `Runner` class with a `WitlessRunner` class. This suggests a focus on codebase modernization and potentially performance improvements. They also implemented test case adjustments to accommodate this change, and contributed to the integration and maintenance of the code.
containerspythonkeepversion-controldataset
nipy/nibabel
Feb 2007 - Mar 2014
Python package to access a cacophony of neuro-imaging file formats
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:472 commits, 1 issue in 7 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Michael's commits focused on enhancing and maintaining the `nibabel` package, a Python library for neuroimaging data formats. Their work included refactoring existing code, addressing bugs in the data format handling (e.g., scaling and voxel dimensions), and implementing new features such as support for NIfTI1 header extensions and memory-mapped access. These contributions involved refactoring, and updates to improve the reliability, and capabilities of the software with the addition of new functionalities for image format conversion and handling.
pythontckimagingtrkstreamlines
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.