[BIC-announce] BIC update

[Sylvain Baillet, Dr]

Dear BIC Members and Collaborators:

As my second day as Interim BIC Director is coming to an end, I thought this would be a good time for a first update about what's coming ahead of us in the course of the next academic year.

First and foremost, I want to emphasize the considerable contribution Bruce Pike has brought to the development of our Centre over the past 15 years. We are all very much obliged to Bruce's vision and driving force to bring the BIC in a leading position at the local, national and international levels. I hope we will have the opportunity to bid proper farewell to Bruce before he takes on his new role at U of Calgary by early September. Let's all wish him good luck and the best success for his new scientific endeavors!

If you look around the neuroimaging community, the BIC is one of the very few (maybe the only one with the Martinos Centre at MGH/Harvard) to feature such a large palette of instrumentation (expansive human and small-animal MRI & PET, Radiochemistry, MEG) and expertise (computational neuroanatomy, medical image analysis, image reconstruction, translational approaches, multimodal integration, etc.). What is actually totally unique about our Centre is its institutional and geographical integration with the rest of the MNI's neuroscience and clinical units. This goldmine of competences and resources has to be valued in how we consider conducting our neuroimaging research and providing services to the scientific community.

This prominent position of the BIC is also something we need to defend and strengthen everyday: local and international competition is growing stronger, techniques and methods evolve rapidly and tremendously in our field. Another prominent factor, especially today, is the cost of neuroimaging research: access fees and the necessary instrumentation upgrades to remain at the cutting-edge are issues quite akin to other fields of science requiring large instruments (nuclear physics, astrophysics, large-scale computation, etc). Fortunately, imaging and neuroscience are disciplines that have been put forward in our University's 2013-17 Strategic Research Plan. With all that in mind, I intend to contribute to the best of my abilities, and with everyone of you, to the fortification and expansion of our position as a leading neuroimaging research centre.

I'd like to keep this first note as short as possible - we'll have more opportunities to communicate on these hot topics over the next few months - so I thought I might close with a short list of things and news:

- Grace Flynn is joining the BIC as Administrative Assistant to the Director. We will all benefit from Grace' tremendous experience: she has served as Executive Admin Assistant to the two previous MNI Directors: Drs Murphy and Colman. We're very fortunate to have Grace onboard and please join me in welcoming her at the BIC!

- MRI Research Committee: Dr Andrea Bernasconi has gracefully accepted to head our MRI Research Committee. Andrea has been a long-time member of the RC and I am grateful he has accepted to take on this key responsibility to facilitate the smooth continuation of our MR operations.

- MRI Physicist: recruitment is underway to hire a new BIC Faculty Member with expertise in MR data acquisition, in replacement of Bruce. Several strong candidates have already applied; a Recruitment Committee will be formed over the next couple of weeks.

- Save the date 1: A site review of our Centre will take place Sept 10-11. Reviewers are Dr Rich Carson (Head of the Yale PET Center) and Dr Bruce Rosen (Head of the A. Martinos Center for Bioimaging Research, MGH/Harvard). Program details to be announced.

- Save the date 2: Giant potluck BICBQ lunch, Friday Sept 13: to rinse our sorrow from that week's site review down into oblivion (whatever it means and might take). Program details to be announced.

- Save the date 3: MNI External Review (Nov 18-19). This will be an opportunity for us all to present our vision about the future of Neuroimaging research at the Neuro and McGill. FYI, reviewers will be Dr. Richard Frackowiack (University of Lausanne), Dr. Steven Hyman, Chair (Harvard University), Dr. Virginia Lee (University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Timothy A. Pedley (Columbia University) and Dr. Joshua Sanes (Harvard University). In preparation to this important event, we'll organize preparatory plenary sessions so that all members of the BIC can contribute suggestions, ideas and critiques.

- 'BIC it' 1: I'll send out an a link to an online survey over the next couple of weeks, to collect your suggestions about how you all perceive your life at the BIC, what it represents or shall represent to be a member of a Centre and to collect critiques and suggestions to revitalize our sense of collegiality.

- 'BIC it' 2: Elections will be held early this fall to elect members of the BIC Steering Committee: a new operational entity that will be key in our Centre's everyday operations and an opportunity for everyone to be heard from everyone. SC members will represent all categories of the BIC personnel: Students, Post-docs, Research Assistants, Staff Admins and Techs and Managers, Faculty + our external users. The SC shall meet on a monthly (tentatively) basis and minutes will be forwarded to all BIC members.


That's about it for now. Sorry for such a long note, on a late Friday afternoon: I guess this is a reflection of my level of enthusiasm to work with you all and to serve as Interim Director. Feel free to contact me directly by email of phone (x5469) if you wish to meet in person or share suggestions.

We're all in for an exciting new ride!

Cheers - Sylvain.

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Sylvain Baillet, PhD

MNI Killam and FRSQ Senior Scholar
Interim Director, McConnell Brain Imaging Centre
Director, MEG Research
Associate Professor, Neurology & Neurosurgery
Associate Member, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering

neuroSPEED lab<http://www.bic.mni.mcgill.ca/ResearchLabsNeuroSPEED/>
MEG @ McGill<http://www.facebook.com/MEGatMcGill>
Brainstorm project<http://neuroimage.usc.edu/brainstorm>

McConnell Brain Imaging Centre
Montreal Neurological Institute
McGill University

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