At the time of writing, we are preparing for the 2023 IEEE NSS/MIC/RTSD meeting. Similar to last year, the meeting will be a hybrid event, with the in-person venue being the Vancouver Convention Centre is downtown Vancouver, Canada from November 4^th -11^th, 2023. I want to acknowledge the organizing committee, including General Chair Vesna Sossi, Deputy Chair Tom Lewellen, Conference Coordinator Ralf Engels and MIC Co-Chairs Margaret Daube-Witherspoon and Rutao Yao for all of their dedication and efforts in putting together the exciting program. We look forward to next year’s meeting that will take us to Tampa Bay, Florida with Lorenzo Fabris as General Chair, Ralf Engels as Deputy Chair, and Georges El Fakhri and Kira Grogg as MIC Co-Chairs.

Congratulations to this year’s Technical Committee award winners. The Bruce Hasegawa Young Investigator Medical Imaging Science Award is awarded to Han Gyu Kang from the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) in Chiba, Japan for contributions to realization of novel imaging systems, especially ultra-high resolution small animal PET, hybrid laparoscope for minimally invasive surgery, modeling of advance medical imaging systems, and TOF-DOI detector research. The IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Medical Imaging Technical Achievement Award is awarded to Thomas Koehler from Philips Research in Hamburg, Germany for contributions to the translation of dark-field X-ray imaging from bench to bedside. Finally, the Edward J. Hoffman Medical Imaging Scientist Award was awarded to Ge Wang from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Loudonville, New York, USA for pioneering contributions to medical computed tomography, multi-modality imaging, and AI-based tomographic imaging, as well as exemplary mentorship in medical imaging training and education. Thank you to all those who have nominated candidates for these awards and for the work of the selection committees led by our Awards Subcommittee Chair Roger Fulton.

In June we held our annual NMISC mid-year meeting via Zoom. Among the topics brought forward for discussion were:

• Nicolas Karakatsanis discussed the Emission Tomography Standardization Initiative (ETSI) and the possible role for NMISC as an endorser of this initiative.
• Youngho Seo led a discussion on whether the NSS/MIC/RTSD meeting should be reduced in length, with more overlap in timing between the three core components of the meetings.
• Robert Miyaoka updated the committee on the process of NPSS Initiatives and the opportunities for NPSS funding for seeding new strategic directions or pilot operational ideas. He also highlighted the success of the Open Kinetic Modeling Initiative (OpenKMI) that was proposed in November 2021 and funding beginning in August 2022.

I encourage all members of the MIC community to reach out to the committee with ideas for new Initiatives or with any topics that they feel NMISC should consider as new business.

This committee update marks my last submission to the NPSS Newsletter as Chair of NMISC. At the end of 2023 my term as Chair will end and Youngho Seo from the University of California, San Francisco will become the new NMISC Chair. This means that Roger Fulton will end his term as Immediate Past-Chair of NMISC. I want to thank Roger for his contributions to NMISC, especially in his role as Chair during the challenging 2020 and 2021 years where so many of our standard committee practices had to be reimagined due to the pandemic. I look forward to continuing to work with Youngho and our new Vice-Chair who will be elected at our November annual general meeting.

More information on NMISC activities is available at https://ieee-npss.org/technical-committees/nuclear-medical-and-imaging-sciences/

Andrew Goertzen, NMISC Chair, can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]