The second quarter of 2024 for NMISC has become quite busy with many committee activities as well as activities that NMISC supports. The most important activity is getting ready for our annual conference, Medical Imaging Conference (MIC) which will be held in Tampa, FL from October 26^th to November 2^nd with two other symposia (Nuclear Science Symposium and Room-Temperature Semiconductor Detectors Symposium) as NSS/MIC/RTSD. This quarter is the time to call for papers, filling up with plans for plenaries, social events, and other associated events such as short courses and workshops during the conference. We are in good hands with the General Chair, Lorenzo Fabris and MIC Chair, Georges El Fakhri, and MIC Deputy Chair, Kira Grogg.

NMISC has three major awards that are presented at MIC. These three awards are targeted to established researchers, mid-career researchers, and junior researchers. Following the new guidelines and generous new support for the mid-career award, starting this year, these will be renamed: IEEE Edward J. Hoffman Medical Imaging Scientist Award, IEEE Freek J. Beekman Medical Imaging Technical Achievement Award, and IEEE Bruce H. Hasegawa Young Investigator Medical Imaging Science Award, respectively. All these NMISC awards presented at MIC are seeking nominations, with July 15^th  as their deadlines. Another important change we made for nominations for these three awards is that nominations will be considered for up to three years without requiring renomination as long as the nominee meets the eligibility criteria. Please send your nominations for those eligible individuals by the deadline.

Following the great success we had last year in Thailand, NMISC is also organizing another NPSS School on Medical Imaging in Indonesia.. This school will be supported by the NPSS Education Committee as was last year’s school. While last year’s school “IEEE NPSS School on Advanced Topics in PET/CT and PET/MRI” focused on more advanced topics that include AI in medical imaging, this year’s school will cover fundamental topics in medical imaging that include X-ray detectors, CT, and nuclear imaging such as SPECT and PET. The organization for this school is once again led by Roger Fulton who masterfully organized the Thai School last year, in collaboration with Supriyanto Prawiro at University of Indonesia. We are currently confirming instructors and making the final plans for the course layout. This Indonesian NPSS School will be held from July 31^st to August 4^th at University of Indonesia and Dharmais Cancer Hospital which has access to medical imaging equipment.

Earlier this year, NMISC, in collaboration with RISC, has formed a joint subcommittee on NSS/MIC/RTSD Conference Structure Review with charges to assess the current conference structure and find areas for improving the conference experience for the attendees. This joint subcommittee has met twice already and plans to meet once more before NMISC and RISC midyear meetings.

NMISC also supports a new initiative proposal led by Nicolaos Karakatsanis, current secretary of NMISC, for an NPSS Internship program. This initiative is to fund costs related to attending NPSS Technical Council (TC) activities and to incentivize early-career professionals to actively engage in TC activities to enhance their professional development. We will brief what this initiative is about during our midyear meeting that will be scheduled during the summer.

Speaking about the midyear meeting in summer and the Annual General Meeting during MIC in Tampa, FL, we also initiated a plan to find a new NMISC secretary who will replace Nicolaos Karakatsanis whose term will end on December 31^st this year. The goal is to bring in a new secretary early enough to overlap with Nicolas to learn the tasks for NMISC activities. We look for nominations that include self-nominations for the new secretary. 

Finally, we, jointly with RISC, started the process of site selection for the 2028 NSS/MIC/RTSD. This effort is led by the Joint Oversight Subcommittee (JOS). We appreciate the support and suggestions for site selection by IEEE MCE, and we look for potential site suggestions by our NMISC members.

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

Youngho Seo, NMISC Chair, can be reached by E-mail at [email protected].