By David Highton and Roger Meder

We were delighted to host an fNIRS symposium (NIRStralia www.nirstralia.com) at the recent NIR2019 conference (www.nir2019.com) in the Gold Coast Australia. The International Council for Near Infrared Spectroscopy NIR2019 conference covers wide ranging applications of NIRS techniques from agriculture to satellite imagery and the development of related hardware.

The fNIRS NIRStralia symposium was a unique opportunity to engage and share research between human NIRS applications (SfNIRS) and the ICNIRS society, and this was achieved with great success.

Ilias Tachtsidis and Yasuyo Minagawa delivered keynotes in an open session to all NIR2019 delegates. This was followed by a parallel session open to all on fNIRS spanning fNIRS, signal processing and medical applications. Felix Scholkmann (Zurich) and Ramani Balu (UPenn) delivered further keynotes amongst a wide range of presentations from delegates effectively showcasing the work of our SfNIRS community. The meeting was a resounding success and there is enthusiasm to further develop this relationship between societies.

I would also like to thank the organising committee: Clare Elwell, Yasuyo Minagawa, Justin Skowno, Roger Meder

Regards

David Highton