ISBI Daily - Thursday

I would totally agree, and it has to be sort of two-sided, because both parties have to be open to that conversation. In my opinion, as computer scientists and engineers, we cannot look at ourselves as a service profession. We’re artists, and I think the medical doctors can improve our art as well as the people in industry can improve our art, and they can give us direct suggestions and guide us as well as we can help them with our data. What brought you to take on your shoulders the challenge of managing an event like this, which is certainly a lot of work and a lot of stress? Great question. Basically, I’ve been teaching now for 24 years, so I’ve been in this profession as a professional for 24 years. I’ve attended this conference every year and really benefited from it. I wanted to give back to the community. The other part of the answer is that the other co-chair, Amir Amini, was really the inaugural force in getting this Washington conference together. He was really the driving force and he asked me to come along, because the expertise of both are complementary. I’ve enjoyed this conference, and I’ve benefited from it technically and socially and professionally. This was my turn to pay my dues. Can you share with us your main learning from the process of organizing such an event? I think the most interesting facet that I learned was that the goal was a multi- objective optimization problem. In other words, there are multiple objectives here to get the best papers, to give high quality, to get the most people, to make financial goals, to network, to highlight the best research, to get the best people… …to hire… …to hire, thank you. Some of these goals can become conflicting at times. And so, there’s not easy solutions. It involves many people getting together, and we’ve been blessed with a great organizing committee and great help from the IEEE. I think we’re going to have record attendance this year, with over 700 people. Going back five or six years, that’s going to be a record. I think one of the reasons, if you ask me why we’re getting record attendance, special sessions, the workshops that I told you about, but four unbelievable plenary speakers, two from the medical imaging community, two from the microscopy or bioimaging community. Let’s say their names. Yes: Laura Waller, Ann Carpenter, Kim Butts-Pauly, Sam Achilefu... I think no one would argue with me if I said that we have three of the top women scientists in this area headlining the conference. We’re very proud of that! Scott Acton ISBI DAILY Thursday 7 “ …we have three of the top women scientists in this area headlining the conference. We’re very proud of that!”