How to attend conferences

We have presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference every year since 1995. The meeting currently alternates between San Diego, Washington D.C., and Chicago. All lab members should join SfN and strive to attend each year’s meeting, whether you are presenting or not. Here are some guidelines for attending this and other conferences:

• Make an itinerary well before the conference and try to stick to it.
• Look for posters / talks that will help to inform various aspects of your dissertation projects (e.g., any presentation that uses behavioral assays in fruit flies, discusses mechanisms of polyphenols, behavioral effects of low-dose irradiation, etc.)
• If presenting, see the section below on talk / poster preparation.
• Go through vendors and look for fun and/or useful schwag (t-shirts, plush dolls, free antibodies, lab samples, etc).
• Go to socials at night and network with grad students, post-docs, and scientists.
• If possible, pick a session to skip and go enjoy the city

12 month timeline for preparing SfN conference presentations

• Mid-November: discuss idea with me
• Beginning of January - 1st lit review idea / determine how to collect & analyze data
• Mid-January - make graphs of anticipated results
• Beginning of April - finish collecting all data / make graphs
• Mid-April - 2nd lit review / start preparing abstract
• Beginning of May - submit abstracts
• Beginning of September - collect any additional data & make graphs
• Mid-September - 3rd lit review / prepare presentation
• Beginning of October - send draft of presentation to Rich
• End of October - print poster
• Beginning of November - create itinerary (curated / plus customized)