FNNDSC Weekly Newsletter - Week 79
Happy Hanukkah to all who are celebrating!
Upcoming Events:
December 2: NBS Webinar Session; Dr. Ela Chakkarapani
NBS Webinar Session: Parental Perspectives and Ethical Considerations in NE
MICCAI Conference: The deadline for submission of workshop proposals is 20 December 2021
Organization for Human Brain Mapping: OHBM 2022 is scheduled to take place in Glasgow, Scotland from June 19, 2022 - June 23, 2022! The deadline to submit an Abstract for OHBM 2022 is: Friday, December 17, 2021 at 11:59 PM EST. (Under no circumstances will this deadline be extended).
Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS): Abstract Submission Important Dates
Call for Abstracts: November 10, 2021, – January 5, 2022
Brain & Brain PET 2022: Abstract Submission due January 2022
13th International Newborn Brain Conference (mcascientificevents.eu): February 10-12, 2022
Clearwater Beach, Florida; hybrid event
The 22nd International Conference on Biomagnetism: August 28 – September 1, 2022
University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Call for Abstracts/Posters submissions has been extended to Friday March 18, 2022
Various Dates: Newborn Brain Society - Fetal Neurology Webinar Series Helpful Links ▴ Research Computing Data Management ▴ Research Computing Self Portal ▴ Research Announcements & News ▴ Office of Sponsored Programs Updates ▴ Funding Opportunities and Links ▴ Staff Resources - Covid-19 ▴ Covid Vaccine FAQs
FNNDSC Project Update(s):
NIRS Team
The NIRS team performed four measurements total last week on two participants in the SCD study and on one participant in one of their NICU studies. In addition, the team enrolled one new participant in the SCD study and had one neurodevelopmental assessment for a previously-enrolled infant in one of their NICU studies.
The NIRS team looks forward to another productive week!
FNNDSC Friendsgiving
Last Week's Fun Fact Friday: Kiho Im, PhD!
Fun fact of this week is about me, Kiho Im. I don’t know how interesting my story is, but at least it was fun for me to think about myself and my history because it's been a long time.
I was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. When I was a kid, I liked making and assembling some plastic models such as airplanes and robots, and I was very interested in mechanical machines and robots. So, I enjoyed math and physics. I liked to understand principles and think logically, so I was a student who felt the happiness when challenging difficult math and physics problems, thinking about it all day and finding the correct answer. Since I liked math, physics, and mechanics, I chose mechanical engineering and mechanical design as my undergraduate major without any difficulties. For several years, I studied and enjoyed several mechanics subjects such as statics, dynamics, fluid mechanics, etc. At that time, I loved Newton’s second law, “F=ma”. Since I liked logical thinking, computer programming and coding also attracted me a lot. When I was an undergraduate student, I compiled and ran my code on a blue screen by running Turbo C++ on a terminal window. I remember I read several books about object-oriented programming and class, and I did programming all night to implement several algorithms. It might be the beginning of my future career path.
Around the time of graduating from undergraduate, I worked as an intern in the Robotics and Mechatronics Lab, but it wasn't as fun as expected. Real projects in that lab were not like what I vaguely dreamed of. When I was not motivated and interested, one of my friends introduced me to computational neuroimage analysis lab that aimed to process and analyze medical images using computer programming. I was immediately fascinated, and I started my Ph.D. course there. My programming skills and experience of logical thinking helped me a lot in implementing ideas and writing papers. It was very exciting for me to see that my ideas could be accepted by other scientists and published in the form of a journal that anyone could read. I was very interested in folding and early development of the brain, and after getting my Ph.D., I searched for a postdoc position and was connected to Ellen. The person who interviewed me was Rudolph in 2009 (I don’t know if he remembers.. haha), and we first met at the HBM conference in San Francisco. As a result, I was accepted as a postdoc, and it seems that Rudolph thought good of me :) That's how I started my second life here in January 2010. When I started, our center was much smaller. As far as I remember, there were fewer than 10 people in the center. I think.. after Ellen moved to BCH and founded the FNNDSC, I was almost the first postdoc. Now I am the oldest member except for Ellen and Rudolph. More than 10 years have passed since then, and there have been many developments, achievements, and changes in the center and myself. I have been working on structural and diffusion MRI analysis, and for the last few years, I have focused on fetal brain MRI. In particular, I’m interested in developing new brain features and analytic methods to understand brain development better. Now I’m leading several fetal MRI processing/analysis projects with my team members as an assistant professor.
I have been busy for 10 years. My wife, Suryon Shin, whom I met in graduate school, majored in chemical and material engineering. She also started a postdoc at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2010 and studied tissue engineering. When we both started postdoc, my daughter was less than a year old, and we had another daughter in 2012. The life of two postdocs with two babies was extremely busy and hard. You can’t imagine :) We just did our best, and I think we went through well. Suryon showed excellent career development and academic achievements, and she is now running her lab as a PI at BWH, HMS. My lovely daughters are growing healthy and well, and they are already 8 and 11 years old. Without a doubt, my family is the most precious to me, and we enjoy family time a lot. One of my favorite things is to go hiking together when the weather is nice. And there are so many happy memories with them. Especially, traveling to Hawaii and Spain, Barcelona before the pandemic is the most memorable. As we all hope, I'm also eager to travel to other cities and countries safely in the near future.
Although we are still busy with paper, grant works, and childcare, I’m trying to have spare time to enjoy my hobbies. I go to a small mountain, not that far. But when we are busy, or the weather is not okay, I enjoy something at home rather than outside. First, I love WATCH so much! I like collecting watches and watching and reading videos and articles about watches. As I said I like mechanical things, I’m always excited with mechanical watches powered only by small and complicated mechanical parts without a battery. It is beautiful and a mixture of science and art. There are also many interesting historical stories about watch movement (engine) development, design, business, and industry. For example, have you heard about the “Quartz crisis in 1969"? :) I want to talk about it more, but this email should be fun facts about me, so I’ll not go further. If anyone is interested in watches and wants to hear any recommendation for purchase, do not hesitate to contact me. I could be more passionate than a research meeting :) Also, I have loved making plastic models since I was a kid. I’m interested in some World War II military things such as airplanes, tanks.
Well...I hope you get to know more about me, my family, and my works. It’s been a great great time to work and collaborate with many nice people in the FNNDSC and make my life in Boston. I see more and more people joining our center and doing various research. I hope all people can enjoy work and life, achieve a lot, and make many good memories here.
I look forward to the next fun facts.
Brain Games
HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE?
If you have something that you would like to see featured in the next newsletter, please contact Winona Bruce-Baiden at: winona.bruce-baiden@childrens.harvard.edu
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