Annual Meeting Preview: New Features at Neuroscience 2013
With nearly 15,000 scientific presentations, 600 exhibitors, 34 professional development workshops and networking functions, and 28 sponsored socials, you’ll want to carefully plan your time at Neuroscience 2013, to take advantage of the new and expanded features at the meeting. They include:
Special Presentation on U.S. and European Neuroscience Initiatives
The great potential for development of new tools and applications across the field is key to the momentum behind the BRAIN Initiative in the U.S. and the European Commission’s Human Brain Project. Global leaders will discuss how the initiatives might affect the field. Panel members include Cora Marrett, acting director of the National Science Foundation; Tom Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health; Story Landis, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Geoffrey Ling, deputy director of the Defense Sciences Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; and a representative from a European organization.
The Special Presentation will be held at 1:15-3 p.m. Monday, November 11.
Gender Bias in Science Symposium
Empirical Approaches to Neuroscience and Society is a new symposium. Jennifer Raymond, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, will lead discussion among researchers on gender bias. In March, Raymond published a commentary in Nature entitled “Sexist attitudes: Most of us are biased.”
Raymond has gathered four experts in the field to discuss their research and action items on how to increase STEM positions for women. The symposium will take place 8:30-11 a.m. Sunday, November 10.
This year’s symposium is the first in a three-year pilot program that will apply hard science to an important issue in the neuroscience community.
Global Advocacy Symposium
Recognizing the challenging global funding environment, The Global Advocacy Committee of the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) and SfN are hosting a panel on advocating for biomedical research funding. The featured guests will share information about their efforts to raise public awareness and encourage government support for neuroscience.
The panel will be introduced by SfN President Larry Swanson and Secretary-General of IBRO Sten Grillner, and moderated by David Kaplan, a member of the Advocacy Office for the Canadian Association for Neuroscience.
“Enhancing Global Cooperation on Advocacy” will be held 3-5 p.m. on Monday, November 11. Limited seating is available. Please RSVP on the events and meetings page of the annual meeting section of SfN.org.
ENHANCED PLANNING RESOURCES
Meeting Planner and Curated Itineraries
The Neuroscience Meeting Planner (NMP), an online tool for navigating annual meeting sessions and events and searching abstracts available at SfN.org, can help attendees build a meeting itinerary. New are curated itineraries that include specific tracks chosen by the SfN program committee. The itineraries are designed to help attendees focus on selected topics and navigate sessions. The topical tracks for this year’s curated itineraries are: advanced methods focused on the cortex, epilepsy, and plasticity.
EXPANDED FEATURES
Dynamic Posters
Dynamic posters debuted at Neuroscience 2012, and the poster session will expand this year to include 10 dynamic poster presentations per half day for a total of 90 presentations at the meeting. These multimedia presentations allow presenters to display on a flat screen with animation, sound, video, and digital images. They will be available during normal poster floor hours in Halls B-H of the San Diego Convention Center.
A list of dynamic poster presentations is available on the annual meeting page of SfN.org.
Graduate School Fair
The graduate school fair has expanded to two days, featuring face-to-face meetings with student advisors, program faculty, and graduate school representatives. It will be held from 12-2 p.m., Sunday, November 10, and Monday, November 11, in the Sails Pavilion. For more information, contact profdev@sfn.org.
Art of Neuroscience
Showcasing artists who create brain- or neurological-inspired pieces was popular at last year’s meeting, and SfN is expanding the Art of Neuroscience exhibit for 2013. As many as eight artists will be displaying and selling their art and jewelry, all related to the field. Stop by the lobby of Ballroom 20 to visit the exhibit.
Planning to attend the annual meeting? Check out the new Neuroscience 2013 community on NeurOnLine to start or join conversations already underway about all the great science and networking events in San Diego -- your emerging science, career development, networking, satellite events, and much more.
