The 2024 NSS/MIC/RTSD committee has been hard at work for a few months now to ensure that our attendees have the best possible experience. As mentioned in the previous newsletter, the conference will be held in Tampa, Florida from October 26^th to November 4^th, 2024 at the Tampa Convention Center, a beautiful venue located in the heart of the city, right on the waterfront, with over 600,000 square feet of event space and easy access to hotels, restaurants, and all amenities.

Our Technical Chairs, Sara Pozzi and Stefan Ritt for NSS, Georges El Fakhri and Kira Grogg for MIC, and Ralph James and Michael Fiederle for RTSD have finished assembling the technical program. This was a very demanding task, having received over 1,000 submissions. Their outstanding job was complemented by over 3,000 total reviews, in keeping with the practice of having three reviewers for each submission. It goes without saying that we could not achieve our goals without most of the community pitching in as reviewers. The entire organizing committee is very grateful for that. As a reminder, conference abstracts will be published in Xplore as the conference record. Feel free to contact our Conference Editor, Youngho Seo, at [email protected] should you have any questions on publications.

All learning opportunities have also been finalized. Our short courses will span modern topics of interest such as low-noise analog design, artificial intelligence and machine learning, PET kinetic modeling and parametric imaging, dosimetry and more. Short courses are found in our “Program” page on our website.

Our workshops will focus on new and emerging technologies as well as on society-level topics. Please note that some workshops may require you to register specifically. On the same page, you will find a plethora of other great events: Women in Engineering (WIE) luncheon, Young Professionals (YP), GATE user meeting, STIR Users’ & Developers’ Meeting, and CASToR Meeting. Some of them have always been a “must attend” event. I hope you will not miss them. Remember that also in this case, registration for an event may be required.

I would like to remind you that the NSS dinner is planned to take place on Monday, October 28^th at the Florida Aquarium, a beautiful venue reachable via the picturesque TECO streetcar right from the Conference Center or a leisurely 20 minute walk. The traditional RTSD luncheon on Tuesday, October 29^th will leave you in awe when cruising the Bay on board the luxurious Star Ship II. Similarly, the MIC dinner will also be in a dinner cruise format on Friday, November 1^st.

I am particularly proud of the fact that, thanks to sponsorship, generous donations, and renewed grants, we are able to offer 184 grants to our students. These grants sometimes make a difference in whether a student can attend the conference. I encourage more potential sponsors reading this newsletter to pitch in with support for more students. There is still plenty of time to make a difference in the career of a young professional. Please contact me ([email protected]) or Merry Keyser ([email protected]) for student sponsorship opportunities. We have also had many applications for the Valentin T. Jordanov Radiation Instrumentation Travel Grant. Our committee of experts is making their selections right now, so stay tuned.

Our exhibitors are delighted to invite you for some fun and relaxed networking on Tuesday evening during their Happy Hour. This event is part of our large exhibitors’ program; make sure you visit the exhibits often and attend their technical presentations to see the latest commercial innovations in our field.

Once again, I would like to thank our organizing committee for the hard work they have done in making this a memorable event. A full list of our volunteers can be found at https://nssmic.ieee.org/2024/contact/. If you happen to see them around, please take the time to thank them for their incredible efforts! As mentioned previously, many thanks to our never-large-enough army of reviewers who diligently offer their expertise to make our program possible.

Finally, look for the conference reception. I would love to say hi and chat to every single one of you.

Lorenzo Fabris, 2024 NSS/MIC/RTSD General Chair, can be reached by E-mail at [email protected].