Welcome to the February 2018 issue of the SfNIRS newsletter.
 | fNIRS 2018 Updates Things are moving forward! The fNIRS 2018 plenary speaker is Prof Martin Wolf, and the other invited speakers are on-board (see list at fnirs2018.org/program/#invitedspeakers). We have a special session lined up on The Origin of the Signals. The fnirs2018.org website is up and running and the committees are working on different aspects of conference organization. The tentative program is online, so please plan-ahead! Abstracts are due in a few months, so don't forget to submit! |
 | Society of fNIRS News Coming soon! Election for President and Board of Directors will take place in a few months. If you have someone in mind, start preparing your nomination. Also, we are planning to send out a General Survey and it's important to get input from all members. Please participate!!! Bids for fNIRS 2020 Meeting in America are now open. |
 | Feature Research: NIRS Hyperscanning: A Door to Real-World Social Neuroscience research Recent advances in non-invasive brain activity measurement techniques have inspired social neuroscientists to simultaneously record data from two or more brains and investigate interpersonal (across-brains) neural correlates in various social situations. Continue reading at: fnirs.org/fnirs-hyperscanning-2018 By Yumie Ono |
 | Feature Story: Light Scan Technique Reveals Secret Writing in Mummy A team led by University College London has been working for the last 3 years to develop multispectral imaging techniques that permits analyzing a range of objects from the Egyptian culture without destroying them. Their work is helping produce a long-sought tool for archaeologists that has implications for digital archiving. Continue reading at fnirs.org/light-scan-mummy By Felipe Orihuela-Espina |
 | NIRS in the News: A Roadside Test for Driving while High Jodi Gilman and her team at MGH are trying to develop a fNIRS based sobriety test method. Their work has recently been highlighted by STAT News. Meryem Yucel recapped this story at fnirs.org/fnirs-roadside-test |
 | Featured Artist: Jenny Jeiyoun Park Jenny Park is a first-year medical student at Seoul National University and a recent graduate of Yale University. As an undergraduate she was involved in an fNIRS study at Prof. Hirsch Brain Function Laboratory (Yale School of Medicine). Her art is inspired by her everyday experiences within scientific academia, an attempt to bridge the disconnect between the spheres of art and science. Read more at fnirs.org/featured-artist-jenny-park |
 | CYRIL: Engineering Light to Monitor Metabolism CYRIL is a multi-distance broadband fNIRS system developed by the group of Ilias Tachtsidis at University College London (UCL) to measure cytochrome-c-oxidase in neonates. Felipe wrote about it at fnirs.org/cyril For further information have a look at http://www.metabolight.org/ |
 | New fNIRS Devices A new multimodal fNIRS-EEG system has been developed in Montreal, Canada. The device integrates 128 optical channels and 32 EEG channels in a headgear connected to a battery powered, belt-wearable FPGA controller module, and weight only 650g. Of importance to the fNIRS community, the authors reported a comprehensive list of literature and instruments featuring wearable fNIRS technologies, Human Brain Mapping, 39: 7–23 (2017). Read more at fnirs.org/portable-fnirs-eeg BrainScan N3001 is the first commercially available fNIRS system developed by a Chinese company. The BrainScan system is currently used in a clinical trial to obtain CFDA certification. Read more at fnirs.org/new-fnirs-system-china Also, for more information contact info@xlfz.cn |
 | Featured Labs News A lot is happening in Dr. Joe Culver Optical Radiology Laboratory at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA, and in Dr. Noman Naseer Neurorobotics Lab at Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Follow the links to learn more: fnirs.org/featured-labs-culver fnirs.org/featured-labs-naseer And write us if you want your lab featured here. |
 | From the Secretary: Membership After two years, our membership manager will ask you for a renewal of your membership. For many of you this will be soon. 30 days before the expiration, you will receive an email with instructions. It is not possible to renew before this date. Also in your account in sfnirs.clubexpress.com a red button will appear at the top beside your name that allows you to renew your membership. Membership has many benefits: a discount on fNIRS conferences registration (this now already includes the conference in Tokyo in Oct. 2018), reduced subscription cost to the SPIE journal Neurophotonics, access to SfNIRS member-only web content (e.g. the literature reviews on fNIRS), and subscriptions to the regular newsletter and emails. The membership fee is only $95 for two years for full members and $50 for two years for students. We encourage you to stay in the society. If you are not a member yet and would like become part of this vibrant community, you can find instructions on how to join here: fnirs.org/membership Martin Wolf |
 | SfNIRS News: Education Committee The Education Committee of the fNIRS Society was formed after the 2016 Paris meeting. Its mission is to provide society members with information about training opportunities, as well as to probe the training and educational needs of the broader fNIRS community. The Committee is currently working with the Program Committee of the upcoming meeting in Tokyo to contribute to the organization of the training course and the morning tutorials. |
 | SfNIRS News: Standardization Committee We thank those who have already responded to the SfNIRS Standardization Survey. While we have received valuable input, we welcome feedback from as many members of the society as possible. If you haven't already weighed in, now's your chance. Please respond! The survey will be open till end of February 2019. The survey is at: https://goo.gl/forms/7AdpudZ84uWY3PSf2 |
 | Job Opportunities (Source: Facebook; please keep posting!) Postdoctoral positions are currently available at: Optics@Martinos MGH, Boston, USA; ICFO, Barcelona, Spain; University College London, UK; Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Gallaudet University, Washington, USA; National Health Research Institutes, Taiwan; University of Calgary, Canada. List prepared by Gemma Bale. fnirs.org/job-postings/job-posting-2018 |
 | fNIRS Publications A list of papers collected by Frank Hu and highlighted on FB and Twitter in the last few months can be found on our website: fnirs.org/publications-highlights-february-2018 |
  | Facebook Group and Twitter The Society for functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy group on Facebook continues to grow. We now have more than 850 members. The role of the Facebook (FB) group is to promote members’ research progress, facilitate discussions, and exchange information. The FB group is the primary source of information for the newsletter, so please share! Our visibility in Twitter is also growing. Remember to add #fnirs in your work-related twits. |
fNIRS Featured Events and Training Opportunities |
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 | Feature Event: The Second Britton Chance International Symposium on Metabolic Imaging and Spectroscopy The Second Britton Chance International Symposium on Metabolic Imaging/Spectroscopy will be on June 11-13, 2018 at the University of Pennsylvania. The event will honor the 105th birthday of Britton Chance, the father of our field, in a way that he would have loved: with a multi-disciplinary scientific program. See more at www.med.upenn.edu/chance |
 | Upcoming Meetings A list of meetings related to fNIRS, maintained by Dany Forster, can be found at: fnirs.org/resources/relatedmeetings. In additions members asked us to highlight the following meetings: |
 | First Italian-French Workshop The first joint Italian-French workshop on cerebral oximetry and fNIRS will be held in Milan on 14-15 June 2018. The workshop will be preceded by a full day course on fNIRS. Further information on registration and on the detailed agenda will follow soon (www.fnirs.it/joint-italian-french-workshop/). Read more at fnirs.org/first-italian-french-workshop |
 | Pittsburg- Campinas fNIRS Courses The NIRS Optical Lab at the University of Pittsburgh (Dr. T. Huppert, PI) and the Biomedical Optics Lab at the University of Campinas (Dr. R. Mesquita, PI) will independently organize two fNIRS courses. The course in Pittsburgh will occur from May 25th to 26th huppertlab.net/, while the course in Campinas will take place from April 6th to 7th brainncongress.wixsite.com/2018/mini-courses read more at fnirs.org/pittsburg-campinas-fnirs-courses |
 | Highlights of Past Meetings Posts about the following meetings can be found at our webpage: MexNIRS: fnirs.org/mexnirs-2017-recap fNIRS Symposium at BU Neurophotonics: fnirs.org/fnirs-bu-neurophotonics NIRStralia: fnirs.org/nirstralia-recap |
Disclaimer: While we encourage translation of fNIRS technology to commercial products by our members, the Communication Committee and the fNIRS society do not endorse any for-profit or non-profit entity and do not receive any compensation for reporting news about commercial products.
The Communication Committee © The Society for functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy