Frank Schoonjans
Software developer · Statistical software specialist · Scientific co-author.
Frank Schoonjans was born in Ghent, Belgium. He studied mathematics and physics and initially worked as a teacher before joining Ghent University Hospital, where he worked in the andrology laboratory from 1985. He began working as a professional programmer in 1989.
Professional Profile
Frank Schoonjans is a Belgian software developer and statistical software specialist. He is the developer of MedCalc, a statistical software package for biomedical and medical research.
His work covers software engineering, numerical computation and statistical methodology, applied mainly to biomedical and medical research. He has worked on software for statistical analysis, image analysis and scientific data processing.
He continues to develop and maintain MedCalc and Digimizer.
Professional Experience
MedCalc — Developer
Schoonjans is the principal developer of MedCalc. His work on it includes:
- Statistical software development
- Implementation of statistical algorithms
- Numerical computation
- Biomedical and medical statistics
- Data analysis and visualization
- Statistical reporting
- Scientific documentation
- User-interface development and internationalization
Digimizer — Developer
Schoonjans is also the developer of Digimizer, an image-analysis application for manual measurements and for automatic object detection and measurement.
Earlier Software Development
His earlier projects range from computer-assisted semen analysis (AutoSperm) and a Windows data-acquisition system for neurophysiology (the Multi Unit Activity analyzer) to the 3D-Calc spreadsheet for the Atari ST.
Scientific Research and Publications
Schoonjans has co-authored scientific publications as a statistical and technical collaborator, particularly in medical statistics, reproductive medicine, laboratory medicine and biomedical research; his early work centred on andrology, including computer-assisted semen analysis. The Ghent University Academic Bibliography lists the publications associated with him.
Selected Publications
- Schoonjans F, De Bacquer D, Schmid P. Estimation of population percentiles. Epidemiology. 2011;22(5):750–751. Full article at PubMed Central
- Hinting H, Schoonjans F, Comhaire F. Validation of a single-step procedure for the objective assessment of sperm motility characteristics. International Journal of Andrology. 1988;11(4):277–287.
- Van den Saffele JK, Schoonjans F, De Gruyter D, Gao C, Kaufman J. The Multi Unit Activity analyzer: a Windows based hardware-software system for low cost, high speed analog to digital data conversion, data acquisition and window discrimination. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine. 1998;56(3):273–275.
- Comhaire FH, Schoonjans FA. Canine hip dysplasia: the significance of the Norberg angle for healthy breeding. The Journal of Small Animal Practice. 2011;52:536–542.
Other publications include research on sperm quality, semen analysis, male fertility, reproductive medicine, sperm morphology, oxidative damage and related biomedical topics.
Books and Technical Documentation
- MedCalc manual — technical and statistical documentation for MedCalc
- Digimizer manual — technical documentation for Digimizer
Statistical Methods
- Medical and biomedical statistics
- Diagnostic test evaluation
- ROC curve analysis
- Agreement and method-comparison analysis
- Bland–Altman analysis
- Reference intervals and percentiles
- Statistical simulation and Monte Carlo methods
- Statistical data visualization
Programming and Web Technologies
- C
- C++
- C#
- Assembler
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- Modula-2