NNS

August 2024

Message from the NNS President

As we kick off the 2024-2025 academic year, I wanted to start my first newsletter as NNS President thanking the Neurotrauma Society membership for an amazing 2023-2024! Our 2024 Society President, Adam Ferguson, and Program Committee Chair, Kim Byrnes, did an amazing job organizing and hosting the 41^st annual National Neurotrauma Society Symposium in San Francisco this past June. They were supported by members of Society Leadership, many committees and our partners at International Conference Services – too many people to thank by name. Truly, the amount of service performed by our membership is astounding and, for those of you who have donated so much of your time, we cannot thank you enough!!

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Introducing our new officers

Olga Kokiko-Cochran, Vice President

As VP I have the privilege of leading efforts to celebrate the accomplishments of our members. This includes Society, Poster, and Travel awards. I am most excited to initiate the Society award application process in Fall 2024 - please be on the lookout for more information and consider nominating yourself or a fellow NNS colleague!

Audrey Lafrenaye, Secretary

As Secretary I serve as the head of the membership committee for NNS. In this role I am excited to continue our recruitment and community building efforts at the NNS booth at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in October 2024 as well as at the NNS booth at our upcoming NNS 2025 symposium in June of 2025. The membership committee is also excited about hosting a virtual round table focused on teaching neurotrauma and developing NNS merch featuring the logo for our upcoming meeting.

Laura Ngwenya, Treasurer

As Treasurer I help make sure our society’s finances are in order. I’m looking forward to helping the society accumulate the funds to sponsor new initiatives.

NNS 2024 Symposium Highlight

The 41st Annual National Neurotrauma Symposium was held from June 9–13, 2024, in San Francisco, CA. Thanks to the wonderful planning committee, my co-chair Dr. Gene Gurkoff, and NNS President Dr. Adam Ferguson, this year's meeting was immensely successful. We started with great pre-meeting activities from PRECISE-TBI and the NIH, had fantastic debates within the AANS/CNS sessions, and then kicked off the meeting with very inspirational talks from our lived experience perspective speakers. Over the following three days, we saw compelling keynotes, plenaries, breakout sessions, and posters. This year brought in 813 registrants, including 360 first-time attendees, and featured 413 posters. We raised the highest amount ever in sponsorship, with 23 exhibit booths and 20 sponsors. As in previous years, we had excellent opportunities for networking, grantsmanship, and career development, thanks to presentations by our TEAM committees and lunch workshops by NIH, CDMRP, and MTEC. Overall, this was a great meeting. I appreciate the support of ICS and our conference manager, Janice, and I hope to see everyone again next year in Philadelphia.

-Dr. Kimberly Byrnes, 2024 Program Chair

Click here to see the NNS 2024 Poster Award recipients

The 2024 NNS annual symposium in San Francisco marked another productive year for the Training Education and Mentoring (TEAM) committee. In addition to our virtual round table in late February: “Elevating Mentorship: Steering Academic Growth, Team Dynamics, and Collaboration with Generative AI in both Pre-clinical and Clinical Realms”, which explored how generative AI relates to mentorship, the TEAM’s symposium workshop: “Enhancing our retention of diverse persons in neurotrauma: strategies for developing inclusive and culturally-conscious environments” focused on panelist and small group discussion of recruitment, retention, and developing of inclusive spaces in the neurotrauma community. This year also marked the fourth year of the mentor: mentee program, which matched over 80 mentor/mentee pairings and consisted of over 100 participants. Furthermore, the TEAM Networking event sold over 120 tickets in record time and was a wonderful evening filled with networking across the NNS community at the lovely Hawthorn. Finally, the TEAM Local Scholars Program hosted over 30 undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds at the conference. Overall, this was a prolific year for TEAM and I would like to extend my thanks to all the committee chairs and co-chairs who spearheaded TEAM’s many initiatives and to our outgoing Training and Diversity Director, Tiffany Greco, PhD, whose support and leadership allowed TEAM to prosper over the last year. It is my pleasure to take over the reins of this fantastic committee and I look forward to working with the NNS community during my 2024-2025 term. If you’re interested in learning more or getting involved in TEAM, please feel free to reach out!

-Amanda C. Glueck, PhD, Training & Diversity Director

NNS 2024 Symposium Highlights – Patient Perspectives

I was incredibly honored to be asked to share my lived experience in a way that motivates and inspires the researchers and doctors in the Neurotrauma world. I met so many individuals who are working to better the outcomes for TBI survivors like myself. Brain injury is such a complex challenge with lots of gray space. We all need conferences like NNS to keep us motivated. I hope my story helped the audience realize their work is saving lives like mine and I will always be grateful they gave me the chance to become Jamie 2.0.

-Jamie MoCrazy

The experience was incredible. I was thrilled when asked to speak, and even more thrilled that the conference theme was Breakthroughs in Technology and Science. Innovations in artificial intelligence and data science offers hope and agency for our community, and the NNS is absolutely up to the task. My talk ranged from the “Sophie's Choice” of prioritizing research, to “taking a page from Silicon Valley” by thinking big, failing fast, and taking more risks. I am grateful to the conference and its participants, many of whom I continue to engage with in follow-up discussions. Neurological research is truly the Mount Everest of medical science, and the NNS is leading the way.

-Chris Barr