Destination Vancouver:
A Message from Your 2026-2027 Annual Meeting Program Chair, Stephan Maier, M.D., Ph.D.
First, let me introduce myself. My home base is at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. I have spent my entire career in MR research, with a long-standing focus on diffusion MR. As you know, this year’s overarching theme is “Development in Every Dimension.” At first glance, this might seem at odds with the random-walk path that forms the basis of diffusion MR. Over time, however, I have come to realize that measurements of randomness can be sensitive to several new dimensions—dimensions that may provide important insights into physiology and disease.
With that in mind, get ready for our next meeting destination: Vancouver!
In my role as the program chair, I had the opportunity, together with our president, Petra Hüppi, M.D., and members of the ISMRM Central Office, to explore the vibrant city of Vancouver and its convention centre.
Already during the approach to the airport, Vancouver presented itself from its most beautiful side: a city surrounded by lush forests, extensive ocean inlets, and snow-capped mountain peaks in the distance. The convention center is located in Downtown Vancouver, offering beautiful vistas of Vancouver Harbour and the North Shore Mountains.
Everything you could wish for during a meeting is within walking distance. There are hotels where you can recover from long meeting days, restaurants and cafés where you can share a beer or a wonderful meal with colleagues, and the Seawall Water Walk for a relaxing stroll—or perhaps an intense scientific exchange while enjoying the views. Stanley Park is also close by, offering opportunities to exercise, explore, or simply take in the beautiful surroundings. During our meeting in May, we can expect average peak temperatures of around 18°C (64°F), with moderate rainfall.
A Convention Center with a View
The meeting will take place in the West Building of the Vancouver Convention Centre. What first catches the visitor’s eye in this recently constructed building is the grand window façade facing the harbor, where seaplanes take off and land. The enormous wood-paneled interior walls are equally impressive, providing a warm and welcoming atmosphere.
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Vancouver Convention Centre: (Left) Exterior of West Building. (Middle) Detail of hemlock and Douglas fir wood paneling. (Right) Ballroom lobby of the West Building.
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Extending across four floors, the building offers ample space for numerous meetings to take place in parallel, as well as for poster and vendor exhibitions. There is also generous space for attendees to meet and converse throughout the meeting. Particularly noteworthy is the sizeable number of dedicated workspaces equipped with desks and power outlets—a welcome feature for anyone who needs to catch up on emails, prepare a presentation, or simply recharge between sessions.
Having such a well-equipped and inspiring convention center at our disposal provides an excellent foundation for a successful meeting.
And Vancouver itself provides plenty of inspiration beyond the convention centre. During my visit, I encountered an impressive variety of street and museum art throughout the city, offering a glimpse into Vancouver’s vibrant cultural scene. I hope the accompanying photographs will give you a small taste of what awaits outside the meeting rooms as well.
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Vancouver art: (Left) Totem pole, Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art. (Middle) DreamWeaver mural facing Thurlow Street. (Right) Tapestry from decommissioned Cat5 patch cables by Emily Hermant, Vancouver Art Gallery.
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Bringing Our MR Communities Together
The Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC) has set out to create a program that will appeal equally to clinicians, technologists, radiographers, physicists, engineers, and other MR scientists, with a particular emphasis on bringing these communities together.
Planning for the named lectures, educational sessions, and plenary sessions is already well underway. The Sunday evening Mansfield Lecture on the topic of metabolic imaging, will be given by Fritz Schick, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Tübingen. Other named lecturers will bring equally fascinating perspectives from across the MR community: Susie Yi Huang, M.D., Ph.D., from Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, will present the NIBIB New Horizons Lecture on connectome MRI; and Karla Miller, Ph.D., from the University of Oxford, will deliver the Lauterbur Lecture on MR imagingmaging for the UK Biobank.
Our overall goal for this meeting is not only to showcase the latest advances in MR, but also to create opportunities for meaningful scientific dialogue—connecting technological innovation with clinical needs and exploring how new MR applications can ultimately benefit patients.
Join Us in Vancouver
I truly hope I can persuade you to make the trip to Vancouver 08-13 May 2027. And of course, I encourage you to share your work by submitting an abstract. Presenting at ISMRM is a unique opportunity not only to share your latest findings with an international audience, but also to receive feedback, engage with experts from across the field, and spark new collaborations. Abstract submission for the 2027 Annual Meeting will be open from 01 October through 28 October 2026. As we get closer to the submission opening date, I will provide more details.
I look forward to welcoming you all to Vancouver in May—and to exploring the many dimensions of MR together!
Stephan Maier, M.D., Ph.D.
2026-2027 Annual Meeting Program Chair
