History

In 1990, following a technologist educational seminar held at the SMRI Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, interest was expressed in starting an MR society/section for technologists. A business meeting was held during the SMRM Annual Meeting in New York City with 18 MR technologists (the original SMRT Steering Committee) from across the nation headed by Dr. John Crues from Santa Barbara, California, and Dr. Herbert Kressel, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Committees were started to include Membership, Bylaws, Nominating, Education, and Program. Members of the newly formed SMRT Steering Committee met at RSNA and approved a set of bylaws specifically for the new technologist society. Bill Faulkner was elected as our first President.

By 1993, things were moving forward quickly. The Third SMRT Annual Meeting was being held, the SMRT newsletter was published, the first Crues-Kressel Award for outstanding achievements in MR technologist education was presented, the Signals Newsletter became a quarterly issue, and the first SMRT local chapter was formed in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and the Society of Magnetic Resonance Imaging officially merged in 1994, with the SMRT holding their Fourth Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas. (Have you ever wondered why our Annual Meeting is one year ahead of ISMRM’s? Now you know why!)

The SMRT would hold its first Annual Meeting outside North America in Sydney, Australia in conjunction with the ISMRM in 1998. Then in 2007, Wendy Strugnell, from Australia, would become the first President-Elect from outside North America! At that point, we were truly an international society, representing technologists and radiographers from around the world, providing education to meet the needs of our entire membership. To reflect our broader scope and global MR community, in 2022, we adopted “International” to the front of our society name to better align with the ISMRM and to reflect our outward reach.