It is a great pleasure and honor to write to you as ISTSS members and share two key updates with you from the ISTSS leadership.
First, ISTSS recently established an Editor Search Task Force chaired by Board member Rachel Liebman. The task of this group was to identify and recommend candidates to help lead our volunteer communication efforts within ISTSS, including our StressPoints Editor, Website Editor, and Social Networking Administrator. I am delighted to report that the Board recently approved the recommendations of this Task Force to appoint an outstanding group of ISTSS members to serve in these positions. First, we are excited to announce that Anka Vujovanic from the University of Houston in Texas will serve as the next StressPoints Editor. We are inspired by her vision for our award-winning newsletter and are looking forward to welcoming her into this role. ISTSS will also welcome Janne Punski-Hoogervorst from the University of Haifa in Israel as our new Social Networking Administrator. Janne brings significant previous experience with social media and many exciting ideas to expand ISTSS’s social media presence. Finally, we are pleased to announce that Lana Grasser from the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland will serve as Website Editor and Chair of the ISTSS Communications Steering Committee. In this role, she will spearhead the ISTSS blog, ensure that the website offers valuable clinical and scientific content for ISTSS members and the public, and oversee the overall vision and collaboration of ISTSS’s different communications streams. Please stay tuned for communication from these newly appointed leaders in the weeks and months ahead.
Next, our 2023 ISTSS Annual Meeting in Los Angeles from November 1-4 is rapidly approaching. This year’s meeting chairs are Isaac Galatzer-Levy and Katharina Schultebraucks, who are doing a wonderful job in developing an engaging, high quality scientific program. They are supported by Laura Miller-Graff and Ateka Contractor who will lead the 2024 Annual Meeting Committee.
We will have some very exciting and interesting presentations. Among the confirmed keynote speakers are George Bonanno, Iris Engelhard and Alicia Lieberman. George Bonanno (Columbia University Teachers College) is a well-known researcher in our field who has been studying trajectories of posttraumatic stress following trauma exposure, and who has had a pivotal role in identifying resilience as a common response to traumatic experiences. Iris Engelhard is a professor of Clinical Psychology from Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her work is centered around cognitive mechanisms involved in the onset and maintenance of anxiety-related mental disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder. She will focus on innovations to improve our current strategies to prevent and treat these disorders. Alicia Lieberman is the Director of the Child Trauma Research Program in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She is an expert in child infant mental health, early trauma treatment outcome research, and mental health service disparities for underserved and minority children and families. In addition, our opening session will feature Brent Decker who will speak about his 25 years on the ground building a global program to reduce community violence.
We will have an exciting array of invited panels and symposia on diverse and timely traumatic stress topics. For students and trainees, we have the annual student luncheon, the Internship and Postdoc Networking Fair, and a new networking session for prospective graduate students and graduate department leaders. Again this year we will host the “Paper in a Day” workshop, which brings together a team of invited collaborators to write a joint paper.
We hope to see you all in Los Angeles, where we will not only have the opportunity to share our latest knowledge in the field of traumatic stress, but also to meet with colleagues and catch-up! Please visit the 2023 Annual Meeting homepage for the latest information.