MRPulse






 

E-news from the
International Society for Magnetic Resonance
in Medicine

Vol. 3, Issue 1, March 2014

Message from the President
Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB


Peter Jezzard, Ph.D.
2013-14 ISMRM President

ISMRM and ESMRMB are looking forward to inviting delegates to the meeting in Milan. We had a record number of abstract submissions this year, totaling 6480, which augurs well for a successful ISMRM Annual Meeting. Annual Meeting Program Chair, Derek Jones, has worked tirelessly over the past year to ensure that the best possible scientific interactions can occur during the meeting. A particularly noteworthy new initiative is the “Newbies Reception”, to which all first time attendees will be invited, and will be able to network with more established members of the Society. This initiative has resulted from a “Trainee Working Advisory Group” that Derek set up at the Salt Lake City  meeting and that enabled the ISMRM leadership to gain valuable face-to-face feedback from a spectrum of trainee members (including several who had never attended an ISMRM Annual Meeting before).  The feedback that we got was that the Annual Meeting can be quite bewildering to those new to the Society (and sometimes to those not so new!). Hopefully the opportunity to have an “orientation” and networking opportunity right at the start of the Annual Meeting will help these people feel better welcomed to the meeting, and will also help them get the most out of the many valuable scientific and educational activities that the Society offers. Senior members: please encourage your trainees to attend this reception, and please support this event if asked to be a mentor.

There are also two ticketed events that I would like to draw your attention to. Both are free to attend, but both have limited space and so tickets will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. The first reception is a Women in MR Forum Evening Event, supported by Bruker, that will take place on the Tuesday evening at the 15th Century Castello Sforzesco in central Milan. The Local Organizing Committee has secured this atmospheric venue to allow female clinical and basic science members to network and discuss key issues in MR. The second, occurring on the Wednesday evening, is a Wiley-sponsored event to celebrate 30 years of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, one of our two Society journals. A team of experts has identified from the MRM archives 30 seminar papers that have helped shape our field, and a celebration edition of MRM that combines these papers is being produced for the occasion. Authors of those papers will discuss the inspiration behind their work and will be available to meet attendees.

Another new initiative that is proving quite popular is the “Room Sharing” service (see
http://www.ismrm.org/14/room_share.htm). This facility enables ISMRM members to identify others who might be seeking to share hotel rooms and thereby minimize the costs of attending the Annual Meeting. Thanks to our ISMRM Secretary, Margaret Hall-Craggs, for suggesting this already popular initiative!

Of course, ISMRM is not just about the Annual Meeting, and contained in this issue of MR Pulse you will also find information on two of our up-coming workshops. ISMRM is averaging at least 6 sponsored workshops per year, mostly on topics that are proposed by our Study Groups. This helps ensure that ISMRM maintains a year-round relevance to our members. An excellent Board of Trustees initiative to support our workshops is an allocation of money from the ISMRM Research and Education Fund that provides support for Trainee members and Associate members (who live in economically challenged areas of the world) to attend our workshops. Please also participate in the increasing number of Virtual Study Group Meetings that are occurring throughout the year, allowing Study Groups to “meet” in a convenient online setting to address issues of scientific interest to their Study Group members. For an archive of recent Virtual Study Group meetings please see:
http://www.ismrm.org/members-only/virtual-study-group-meeting-archive/

In closing, I want to thank all the many people who have committed time and energy to ISMRM. We have an army of volunteer members who give time to help ISMRM achieve its mission of remaining the foremost international and interdisciplinary community of scientists in our field. It has been a pleasure and an honour (note British spelling!) to serve as President for 2013-14, and I can only encourage you to become involve in our committees, study groups, and regional chapters. See you in Milan!

Peter Jezzard, PhD
President, 2013-2014