![]() Sitting on my couch I have missed the casual opportunities to meet friends at the conference and the random bumping into a neuro-celebrity. Middle: Maria Hjortsmark, Marketing Manager. Image: Atlas Antibodies' team at the SfN conference, Chicago IL, October 2019. What’s your favorite city for a scientific conference? How could I forget about my time in New Orleans, on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, eating oysters and alligator soup while listening to improvised street Jazz.? ![]() Whether this is good or not, I still remember the biggest slices of cake in Atlanta. Strange foods are also part of the authentic travel experience, right? Though sometimes incidents happen like when, in San Diego, I left my camera on the taxi seat (no worries, I got it back). The Cable News Network CNN tour and the world of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. The walk on the South Mission Beach in San Diego. The Lincoln Memorial and the White House in Washington DC. I love to explore new places, taking advantage of any free hour in between the busy schedule to run to a museum, a monument, or for a lovely bus sightseeing city tour. Getting away for a few days from my everyday life to discover a new city is something I have always enjoyed. Still, there is something from the on-site events I really miss. SfN Virtual Connectome created a great event and after attending multiple virtual events this year I discovered that yes, they can be pretty amazing. Was that enough or was something missing.? In the end, I felt I got more value because I could access all the conference recordings. I could stop, re-play, and re-listen certain parts I might have missed, read questions and answers in real-time and calmly write readable notes down. I could listen to all the (parallel) sessions, workshops, and plenary lectures. I snacked and drunk coffee for free whenever I wanted (and let me tell you that my coffee tastes much better than any coffee I have ever sipped at any conference lounge). I could look at the park outside my window still listening to a plenary lecture. I have dressed in a more than informal way bordering on embarrassment. However, in some ways, I almost (almost!) preferred the virtual experience to the in-person experience. ![]() Not counting any sort of distractions: emails, notifications, chores, kids, and pets screaming for attention. Staring at a screen all day while sitting in the same place for hours is definitely exhausting. 128 g raduate s chool and c areer f air exhibitors.(a small fraction of the 30,000 who would ordinarily attend !) ![]() They provide scientists at all career stages and of all disciplines with the opportunity to showcase their studies and to connect with top scientists without the fear of approaching them in person and present their results in a s tage - fright - free mode. During the height of the pandemic, many companies and organizations had to transform their already planned international conferences and meetings into digital events.ĭigital events amplify the scientific exchange across the globe. This year everything was differentĢ020 marked the start of our virtual lives. SfN meetings gather thousands of neuroscientists, both young and senior, from all around the world to a major US city to discuss not only cutting-edge research on the brain and nervous system but also to explore school fairs, be amazed by neuro-related art exhibitions, listen to music concerts and look into hundreds of job opportunities.Įach year for the last 15 years, I booked my tickets, printed my visa, and traveled as a student, postdoc, and more recently as a scientific writer, to Washington DC, New Orleans LA, Chicago IL, San Diego CA, Atlanta GA, multiple times. Like thousands of other neuroscientists, every year I look forward to joining the biggest neuroscience conference: the Society for Neuroscience or SfN, as we friendlily call it. ![]()
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