Dear ISNR community,
As we wrap up from our Pearl (30th anniversary) ISNR conference and from my term as president, I think about the past, present and future. The famous saying “Without the past there is no future” (anonymous) applies to us, especially as we remember our pioneers who built a strong foundation for us with their passion, beliefs, and knowledge. It is our role to continue to raise our professional standards while creating a safe and welcoming community. A community that is based on diversity, equity and inclusiveness. We are nearly 700 members strong from all over the world, with diverse backgrounds and interests, from academia to clinicians. We are all eager to share our research and our clinical work.
Together, ISNR’s achievements over the past year have built on a solid 30-year foundation. Several of our ongoing projects started this year are based on the vision created by our founders, including publishing a paper, interviewing our founders, and redesigning our website.
The first project is an updated version of the ISNR Standard of Practice Position Paper. The original position paper was written in 2011 which is still relevant, however, many things have evolved. In particular, we are updating the scope of practice and unintended adverse reaction (side effects) sections, and adding new sections pertaining to our current international societies and the emergence of remote/home based training. The authors are hard at work writing and editing, and hope to publish the paper in the next few months.
The second project, “From Feed-back to Feed-Forward”, is about interviews with our founders. Throughout the conference, you might have seen the debut of short video messages from our pioneers. All these short video messages, along with the full interviews will be available to view on the ISNR website in the coming weeks. I feel honored for the opportunity to listen, learn, and be inspired from the greats. Most importantly, they have helped me become a better neuroregulation practitioner and a better person. I encourage everyone to watch them; it is well worth the time. We will be sure to let you know when the videos go live.
The third project is the ISNR Website re-design: Again, here we are building upon the original website and finding ways to improve it. The new website is a big improvement, with faster response times, friendly user interface, multi-lingual, and new content that will continue being added. The exciting news is that the new website was just launched!
These projects are part of our vision of raising our (already high) professional standards and increasing our diversity. Diversity is a fundamental value of ISNR. Over the past year, we increased the number of our affiliates bringing the number up to nine international societies from all over the globe; from Australasia (ANSA), South Africa (BFSA), Italy (SINQ), Mexico (SMBN), Spain (SEBINE), Spain (SENT), Brazil (ABBIO), Asia Pacific (APNA) and the International Organization for Psychophysiology (IOP). Diversity also includes students and universities, and this year we had a record number of student participation and submissions for the conference.
As an international leader in the neuroregulation field, ISNR strives to continuously raise the high professional standards of our field. Our Board of Directors and the Committees are developing transparent and clear criteria, guidelines and standards. For example, jargon-free definitions of technical terms (by the Neuroregulation Guideline Committee), explicit criteria for student awards. Moreover, this information is easy to access from our website.
All this progress would not have been achieved without the many ISNR member volunteers. We are grateful for their dedication, hard work, and support. We would love to have you join us! You don’t need to be a board member to get involved.
I would like to give a shout-out to some specific people (and I apologize for any of those I might have inadvertently overlooked) that I have been lucky enough to work with over the past year. I will start with our loyal and reliable treasurer and member of the executive committee, Dr. Nick Colosi. Nick has tons of common sense; it seems we always agree to every Nick suggestion. We all can sleep well knowing that Nick is our treasurer. While on this topic, I am happy to report that ISNR is financially stable, and secure.
Thank you to Dr. Diana Martinez, ISNR Secretary and the chair of the Ethics committee. The ethics committee includes Dr. Leslie Sherlin and myself. Ethics committee is essential for all organizations including ISNR. The committee members handle ethical issues with sensitivity and high professionalism and developed a confidential complaint process that will protect any individual who files a complaint.
Thank you to Ms.Tanya Morosoli, our International Member-At-Large and the chair of the Membership Committee, Dr. Rusty Turner, Dr. Dick Genardi, and Dr. Michael Trayford . Thanks to Tanya’s outreach and hard work, currently, ISNR is affiliated with nine international organizations. In addition, ISNR has almost 700 members from all over the world. The membership committee are continuing to grow the ISNRU project.
Thank you to Dr. Dick Genardi, our Member-At-Large, who organizes the ISNR-U. Dick’s critical view and thoroughness has been a major and welcome asset. Dick’s endless knowledge and insight about our field is valuable and inspiring to all of us who worked closely with him.
Thank you to Dr. Robert (Rusty) Turner, our energetic Member-At-Large and a member of the CPT committee. Rusty’s common sense and plethora of knowledge has been an essential contributor as well as an integral part in the “From Feedback to Feedforward” project conducting many of the founder’s interviews.
Thank you to Dr. Michael Trayford, our Member-At-Large and the chair of the Neuroregulation Guideline committee, and to the committee members Dr. Claire Gregory, Ms. Michelle Aniftos, Dr. Mirjana Askovic, Dr. Diana Martinez, and Mr. Tyler Mark. The committee brings a refreshing perspective to ISNR with their engaging approach to educating with jargon-free definitions of technical terms, to make them simple, interesting, and relevant.
As the chair of the Student Advocacy Committee (SAC), I would like to thank our SAC members, Dr. Nick Colosi, Dr. Mark Jones, Dr. Diana Martinez, Ms. Tanya Morosoli, and Dr. Tato Sokhadze. I am proud to report that we had a record number of student submissions, attendees and members to our last conference. SAC set up guidelines for submissions and awards, simplified the application process, and provided both financial support and student academic awards.
Thank you to Dr. Cynthia Wilson, who stepped in as the new chair for the Public Education committee. For those of you who haven’t met her, Cynthia very quickly mastered her responsibilities. The Education Committee is currently running our ISNR webinars and is responsible for planning the webinars.
Thank you to Dr. Mark Trullinger, chair of our newly formed CPT committee and the committee members Dr. Rusty Turner, Dr. Mark Jones, Dr. Nancy Wigton, Susan Alvarez, Dr. Ainat Rogel, and Dr. Nick Colosi. They continue to work with health insurance providers. I can speak for all of us that we hope one day our treatments will be universally covered. Mark and the CPT committee are actively working to make that wish a reality.
Thank you to our Journal committee Dr. Rex Cannon, the editor of our NeuroRegulation journal and Dr. Nancy Wigton for your many years of associated with the journal.
Thank you to Ms. Alissa Paramo, chair of the ISNR Vetting committee. Alissa communicates with our vendors to assure the high standard of our vendors, making sure that each vendor and every item being displayed at ISNR conference will meet ISNR criteria for quality, honesty, and reliability.
Thank you to all the presidents of our affiliated societies around the globe, both for your input and help in forming relationships with the international societies – these relationships are priceless. Thank you to Ms. McGill Scott, president of BFSA, South Africa, our voting member from the international societies and Dr. Mirjana Askovic, the president of ANSA from Australia, who participates in our board meetings. Both McGill and Mirjana joined our meetings that are held at, let’s just say, unusual times for them.
Thank you to the ISNR voting member of the Advisory Board and past president, Dr. Dave Cantor. Thanks also to Mr. Rob Longo, who stepped in as the voting member when needed. Thank you to all the advisory Board members Dr. Leslie Sherlin our past President, Dr. Ruben Perez, and Ms. Theresa Hubbard.
Thank you to Dr. Tato Estate Sokhadze, Ex- officio and SAC committee member, for the many years in this position who hardly ever misses a meeting and is always willing to volunteer in committees.
Special thanks to all our members and everyone who attended the conference – it wouldn’t be a conference without you. There are many ways you can get involved. We would love to have you join us!
Thank you to the ISNR conference committee chair, Ms. Noel Larson Ford and the conference committee members Ms. Lexi Meinhold, Ms. Susan Alvarez, Ms. Alissa Paramo, Dr. Leslie Sherlin, Dr. Ainat Rogel, Dr. Nick Colosi. Three years ago, Noel was able to quickly adjust to the pandemic challenge by creating an entirely new virtual conference. This year, with the pandemic restrictions being relaxed, Noel helped create a new hybrid model allowing people to gather in-person or entirely online. Without Noel and the conference committee, we would not be here today. I would like to acknowledge the conference committee members and our volunteers who made the conference such a great success. A special mention to Ms. Angela Farrar, who provided immense support for the conference success, although not officially part of the committee.
I would like to thank in advance Dr. Mark Jones, our president-elect, who will start his term as president in September. Mark has the perfect combination of skills to be an excellent president. His common sense, wisdom, curiosity, and focus will serve ISNR well. In addition, Mark’s calming manner and ability to make everyone feel appreciated and welcome. I am confident that I am leaving ISNR in good hands.
Last but not the least, I would like to give a huge thank you to Ms. Susan Alvarez, our legendary director. Susan is the anchor of ISNR. On the backend, Susan takes care of all the small details it takes to run ISNR smoothly year after year. We know how much effort it takes to make it seem easy. On the front end, Susan interacts with everybody from ISNR members to people who contact us to board members. She keeps everything together, follows up with conversations, and is the face of ISNR.
I am pleased to announce the winners of ISNR 2022 awards:
- Faryal Raees: The Bio-Medical sponsored FNNR mini-grant
- Dr. Rubén Pérez: The FNNR mini-grant
- Andrea Reid-Chung: The Consolation student project award to runner-up in FNNR mini-grant competition
- Ms. Matida Stirner & Dr. Christian Paret: The Kamiya First Person Science Award
- Dr. Rogene Eichler West: The Joseph and Ann Marie Horvat Award
- Dr. Dick Genardi: The Joel F. Lubar Award
- Dr. Steve Stockdale: The M.B. Sterman Career Achievement Award
- Mr. James “Ross” Spears: The ISNR In Memoriam Award
- Mr. Rob Longo: The Presidential Award of Merit
- Dr. Ainat Rogel: The ISNR Fellow Award
- Dr. Nick Colosi: In recognition of your dedicated service on ISNR Board of Directors
- Dr. Dick Genardi: In recognition of your dedicated service on ISNR Board of Directors
- Ms. Tanya Mosoli: In recognition of your dedicated service on ISNR Board of Directors
- Dr. Robert (Rusty) Turner: In recognition of your dedicated service on ISNR Board of Directors
- Dr. Ainat Rogel: The ISNR Past President’s Award
Student Awards:
- Mr. Mohammad Sendi: The Gerry Gluck Award
- Ms. Lisa Bortolotto: The Presentation Award – 1st Place
- Ms. Bettina Poe: The Presentation Award -2nd Place
- Mr. Ross Spears, Ms. Whitney Rich, and Ms. Emily Surratt: The Presentation Award -3rd Place
- Ms. Natalia Milakhina: The ISNR Student Poster Award
- Mr. Mohammad Sendi: The ISNR Student Poster Award
- Ms. Jessica Gregory: The ISNR Student Poster Award
- Ms. Lisa Bortolotto: The iQEEG Scholarship Award
- Ms. Johanna Rodriguez Beato: The iQEEG Scholarship Award