President's Message

October 1, 2024

Dear Colleagues –

Many of us are in full swing as the academic year has begun. For SRI, we are moving into the busy season of dues, meeting planning for the 2025 Annual Meeting in Charlotte, and collaboration in various areas. A topic of discussion over the past year with SRI leadership, is how to showcase what makes SRI unique. A small group of leaders and those early in their career, have been discussing this further, and are developing a lunch session to be held in Charlotte on Translating Discovery to Improved Reproductive Health. The session will feature multiple sets of experts on this topic.

On September 19/20, the SRI Global Outreach Committee hosted its second webinar, Showcasing Reproductive Sciences in Australia. The webinar featured three talented researchers: Drs. Jack Darby, Beth Allison, and Emerson Keenan. Hosted by Prof. Suzie Miller, topics covered included Understanding Fetal Haemodynamics in Response to Novel Therapeutics Using MRI, Programming of Cardiovascular Dysfunction Associated with Fetal Growth Restriction, and New Technologies for Monitoring Pregnancy Complications. If you were not able to join, you may watch the recording of the webinar, on the SRI website.

Hopefully you saw the announcement just last week, announcing SRI Annual Meeting registration is now open! To receive the best fee, we recommend you register no later than February 6. Once again, SRI will provide 25 discounted registrations as part of the Underrepresented Minority Discounted Registration Program. Planning is in full swing, with some new and exciting activities being planned. I am especially pleased to take the inaugural high school outreach activity done by Past President Steve Matthews, and expand to a full-day program. The Diversity Bootcamp Day (DBD) will take place Wednesday, March 26, and will be a combination of panel discussions, hands-on activities, networking, and poster viewing. The importance of diversity in the biomedical research workforce was highlighted last year during an excellent NIH webinar on why diversity matters to the NIH (and much more). I encourage you to watch the three experts discuss a variety of topics around this issue.

As a reminder, if you did not pay your SRI membership dues by yesterday’s deadline, you will still be able to. Contact the SRI staff, info@sri-online.org for more information. The SRI staff is working to register with the HRMC, so that those in the UK can have their memberships reimbursed by their institutions. Stay tuned as things progress. I highly encourage you to ensure your dues are up to date before registering for the Annual Meeting, for the smoothest experience possible.

As always, if you have news to share, please let us know at info@sri-online.org

Sincerely,

Ayman Al-Hendy, MD, PhD

SRI President, 2024-2025