Funding is requested to support graduate students and postdoctoral trainees attending the 2018, 2019, and 2020 IEEE Medical Imaging Conference. The IEEE Medical Imaging Conference (MIC) is held jointly with the IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium (NSS). This conference has a long history of successful meetings with the NSS starting in 1954 and the MIC portion starting formally in 1990. This annual international conference is the largest and most important meeting dedicated to technical developments in radiotracer-based medical imaging methods, particularly positron-emission tomography (PET) and single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT). Additional topics include development of other tomographic modalities, such as novel CT techniques and multimodality imaging such as PET/CT, SPECT/CT and PET/MR. The emphasis is on detectors, imaging systems, and algorithms for image reconstruction and image quantitation. At the most recent IEEE NSS-MIC meeting in 2017 in Atlanta, over 1300 papers were presented and total attendance was 1764, with at least half of the attendees declaring the Medical Imaging Conference to be their primary interest. Each year, this grant will provide ten trainees (graduate students or post doctoral fellows) with $1000 each towards conference registration and accommodations. Awardees will be selected based on objective criteria, with an aim towards enabling attendance by a broad spectrum of students including women, minorities, and those with families.
This project will provide financial assistance to ten graduate students and postdoctoral fellows each year to attend the 2018, 2019, and 2020 IEEE Medical Imaging Conference. This will advance the training of the next generation of scientists and engineers in the field, allowing them to join the effort to refine and develop new methods for medical imaging. These methods will in turn allow for better diagnosis and monitoring of disease, and thereby achieve a lasting impact that improves public health.
