The Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) is the primary international organization dedicated to non-invasive neuroimaging research and the functional organization of the human brain. The Annual Meeting of OHBM is regarded as the premier venue for the integration of innovative brain imaging methods and cognitive neuroscience. It was started more than 20 years ago to provide a forum for the brain-mapping scientific community to disseminate findings and enable interactions among scientists investigating the functional organization of the brain with emerging imaging methods. Since 1994, the OHBM has sponsored twenty-three highly successful meetings, where attendees are exposed to cutting-edge neuroimaging data acquisition methods, emerging approaches to large-scale neuroimaging data analysis, the visualization of results, and their applications in health and disease. This award will fund travel awards for deserving students and trainees to attend the 2018 Annual Meeting to be held in Singapore. Travel awards will be given to 30 students with high-ranking abstracts. Of these at least 15 travel awards will be awarded to the students with the top-ranked abstracts among 3 targeted groups (women, minorities, disabled).
The Annual Meeting provides a means for students of neuroimaging to attend educational courses, hear lectures from leading brain researchers, form new collaborations, and to present their original research. OHBM On Demand provides public access to educational resources year-round by publishing online past OHBM courses and talks. These openly available videos and slides include keynote lectures and educational courses on topics covering state-of-the-art methodologies and clinical applications of neuroimaging. Historically, female representation in the mathematical and computational sciences has been low. In contrast, in both neuroscience and psychology it has been relatively high. Hence, the conference's position in the cross-section of statistics, computer-science, psychology, and neuroscience promises to provide computational training to a diverse audience and help bridge the gender gaps in the STEM fields. In addition, improved understanding of the organization of the human brain is directly relevant to treating neurological and psychiatric disease, and the use of non-invasive imaging methods is increasingly important to translational investigation and training in clinical neuroscience. As neuroimaging is used in a wide-range of scientific disciplines, we would expect benefits for society in areas ranging from economic and social policies to medical, educational and psychological interventions.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
