ARO MidWinter Meeting in Person Again
The Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) is the world’s largest organization of hearing and balance researchers, with members drawn from universities, medical centers, research institutes, and biotech companies around the world who study anything and everything in the field of otolaryngology (ear, nose, and throat).
As such the annual ARO MidWinter Meeting is the preeminent conference for scientists and clinicians conducting research in the hearing and balance fields. The 46th meeting just concluded after five days in Orlando, Florida—the first in-person conference since late January 2020.
According to ARO, this year’s conference featured 217 panel presentations and 966 posters, with some 1,800 folks going through the exhibition and poster hall. Posters can be submitted by any ARO member, with the result that graduate students and postdocs can showcase their research alongside some of the biggest names in the field.
Posters—think school science fair, on steroids—are an excellent way for researchers to not only present their findings but also get feedback and insights from fellow researchers, start conversations about collaboration, and help pave the way for future publishing of the results and research funding to continue or expand the project. For grad students and postdocs in particular, it's a terrific way to interact with peers, mentors, department heads, funders, reviewers, journal editors, and potential future employers.
Name tags were handy at our event!
For us at HHF, it was incredibly gratifying to see so many Emerging Research Grants (ERG) scientists' names on posters. It was impossible to walk down an aisle without seeing at least one name belonging to a past or current grantee—if not a half dozen. There were four poster sessions, with each featuring over 200 posters, with a completely new batch for each session. I assiduously took photos of every poster with a name I knew for the first two poster sessions (thank goodness for smartphone cloud storage!).
As in prior years, HHF’s Hearing Restoration Project (HRP) member Ronna Hertzano, M.D., Ph.D., and her University of Maryland team hosted workshops on using the gEAR, the data visualization and bioinformatics tool that the HRP helped fund. This year they expanded to hold eight separate sessions! The first two workshops were so crowded that ARO moved the remaining ones to a larger room.
The late Neil Segil, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California, was honored with a symposium highlighting his contributions to the field of inner ear development and hair cell regeneration, with remembrances from lab members and colleagues, including the HRP’s Andy Groves, Ph.D., Tatjana Piotrowski, Ph.D., Jennifer Stone, Ph.D., and Litao Tao, Ph.D.
HHF hosted a reception for our ERG and HRP scientists, reviewers, advisory body members, and other friends of HHF. It was the same evening as the Super Bowl so we were glad to have a great showing—and someday there will exist (more) venues that are designed to dampen the sound of 50-some people talking!
Throughout are some photos from ARO 2023, featuring some of the researchers you have supported. It was so great to see everyone! HHF is already looking forward to the conference in 2024. —Yishane Lee