This is an executive summary of some of the activity that has occurred in the past few months compiled from posts made to our Facebook group page and to Twitter.
Please note that not every post or news item is repeated here. We selected posts/items that we felt might be of greatest interest to society members. This necessarily involved some discretionary choices, but we made our best effort at fair representation of what’s going on.
Nevertheless, if you know about relevant activity that you think should be included here, please contact us with your comments so that we can be more comprehensive in our coverage. Also, for what it’s worth, the order of presentation here is arbitrary. For future newsletter issues, we encourage you to announce events via the Facebook group or on Twitter using the hashtag #fNIRS.
fNIRS helping ALS patients use their brains to communicate
Posted by JoJo Platt on Tw, Jun. 29, 2020
Ilias Tachtsidis promoted to Professor at UCL
Posted by Clare Elwell on Tw, Jun. 23, 2020
Several fNIRS abstracts at 2020 Organization for Human Brain Mapping Annual Meeting
Posted by several on Tw, Jun. 23-Jul 3, 2020
As in previous years, there were a good number of fNIRS abstracts at OHBM.

Statement from SfNIRS Leadership
Posted by Stacey Piro Ladieu on FB, Jun. 9, 2020
As racism across the world comes into focus, the Society for Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy affirms its opposition to discrimination, inequality and injustice. We are committed to doing all we can to ensure an inclusive and diverse scientific community which enables all individuals to thrive.
Statement from SfNIRS Leadership
Posted by Stacey Piro Ladieu on FB, Jun. 9, 2020
As racism across the world comes into focus, the Society for Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy affirms its opposition to discrimination, inequality and injustice. We are committed to doing all we can to ensure an inclusive and diverse scientific community which enables all individuals to thrive.
Clare Elwell, President of SfNIRS
Maria Angela Franceschini, President Elect of SfNIRS
ARTscientific webinar on Revealing the art of Near Infrared Spectroscopy
Posted by Daphne van der Putte on FB, Jun. 3, 2020
We from Artinis are organizing a webinar series that is free to join for everyone. During this challenging time, we want to provide an open virtual platform to all NIRS enthusiasts to learn, explore, and engage with fellow NIRS researchers. Our topics span from brain to muscle, infants to adults, research to clinical! Click on the link below to learn more about the topics and how to register. Everyone is welcome, and you will be sure to learn more about NIRS and its many applications. We hope to see you there!
New FB group devoted to fNIRS method and software development
Posted by Ted Huppert on FB, May. 21, 2020
I have created a new FB group devoted to fNIRS method and software development (https://www.facebook.com/groups/255797872431544/?ref=share). The goal of this new group is to specifically discuss analysis approaches. As part of this initiative, we would also like to offer a regular “virtual journal club” where members of this FB group get together over Zoom with a scheduled presenter to discuss a new method, software, or topic in a 30min presentation/30min Q&A format. Information and scheduled events for this virtual journal club will be posted on the new group’s page. We plan to archive these zoom sessions on the group page as well.
Annual NIRS Toolbox course
Posted by Ted Huppert on FB, May. 21, 2020
While COVID has shut down our ability to offer our annual NIRS Toolbox course in person, we have decided to host it online (for free) on Zoom this year. We will be offering three different sessions (2hours each) on Fridays in June. Information and registration forms are found on our lab’s website at http://huppertlab.net/nirs-course/. We will be recording and posting the series if you can’t attend the live events. Previous years are also recorded and already on our website.

BIDS data structure
Posted by Luca Pollonini on FB, May. 31, 2020
To promote the SNIRF format, facilitate data sharing and integrate multimodal data, we are organizing a working group to discuss how the SNIRF format could be adopted as standard extension for fNIRS in the ever-growing BIDS data structure (https://bids.neuroimaging.io/).
Find the link to the NIRS BIDS (BEP030) here.
Optical imaging with Kyle E. Mathewson
Posted by Micah Blumberg on FB, May. 12, 2020
fNIRS papers were the most downloaded last year
Posted by Paola Pinti on Tw, May. 9, 2020
Brainbox Initiative free webinar on Multi-modal Applications with fNIRS
Posted by Dan Phillips on FB, May. 6, 2020
This might be of interest: Brainbox Initiative have got a free webinar on Multi-modal Applications with fNIRS on May 11th. Part of an ongoing series looking at non-invasive brain stimulation and brain imaging techniques.
OSA Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics
Posted by several on FB/Tw, Apr. 20-23, 2020
fNIRS had a large presence in this year’s OSA Biophotonics Congress held virtually. Several of our members published abstracts and were invited to talks. The conference program was outstanding.
fNIRS2020 postponed to 2021
Posted by Mari Franceschini on FB, Apr. 9 and Clare Elwell on Tw, Apr. 20, 2020

Sad but necessary, fNIRS2020 has been postponed to 2021.
BrainAnalyzIR and Homer3 Workshops with Dr. Ted Huppert and Dr. Meryem Yücel
Posted by NIRx Medical Technologies on FB, Apr. 9, 2020
The planned ICL London workshop on advanced fNIRS analysis is now transferred to a webinar series. Following the fNIRS Society meeting of March 30th where many voiced interests in data analysis, we are happy to open registration to everyone.
We look forward to seeing you online! Registration information is below.
- April 16th – How to Set-Up the BrainAnalyzIR and the Homer2/3 toolboxes
- April 23rd – The new Homer3 and Motion Analysis with Dr. Meryem Yücel
- April 24th – Motion Analysis in the BrainAnalyzIR toolbox with Dr. Ted Huppert
ICFO Seminar on Non-invasive, deep tissue monitoring & imaging with diffuse light; basics, theoretical model and instrumentation by Turgut Durduran
Posted by Hamid Dehghani on FB, Apr. 2, 2020
Here is a free seminar from Turgut Durduran at ICFO. A great initiative and looking forward to it.
1st fNIRS zoom meeting
Posted by Mari Franceschini on FB, Mar. 30, 2020
Thank you to all the participants today. It was great to connect with all of you.❤️ For people that have missed it:
Here is the link to the notes from the meeting. https://docs.google.com/…/1qz06XPm1lNpp6bPclO22OopkmI…/edit…
with some useful operational info and to the zoom video: https://www.dropbox.com/…/fNIRS_zoom_meeting1_March30_2020.…

The Facebook group celebrates its 5th anniversary.
Posted by Mari Franceschini on FB, Mar. 21, 2020
5 years ago I started this group and I am so proud we are now 1350 members. 5 years ago I would have never imagined that most of us are now in lock-down and our labs are closed. While we should all follow the social distancing policies, let’s increase our virtual interactions. I’m working on setting up some zoom fNIRS event. Stay tuned…. and feel free to post your lab status photos here.
fNIRS SciArt
Posted by Laura on Tw, Mar. 17, 2020

New wearable fNIRS device.
Posted by Rickson Mesquita on Tw, Mar. 3, 2020
