We are pleased to announce that we will host an online Mind Matching session (powered by Neuromatch) ahead of the VSS conference. It’s a great opportunity to make new connections online through VSS before the conference begins. Those who want to continue the conversations can later arrange to meet up in person at the conference. The event is open to all members. Everyone is invited and encouraged to join – graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, professors, researchers, and industry professionals.

WHEN: May 2nd, 11 am EDT (that’s the time in St Pete’s Beach, FL; (Time zone converter!!)

WHERE: Zoom link sent to participants.

Sign-ups close on or before April 25th (registration will be capped at 300 attendees)

What is Mind Matching? Mind Matching pairs you with attendees with similar interests, explicitly ruling out people you already collaborate with.

How does Mind Matching work? You provide recent abstracts (something you’ve written or abstracts you didn’t write that you find interesting). You also provide your ORCID id (if you don’t have one, you can make one here) and a list of people you don’t want to be matched with (collaborators, advisors, friends, labmates). Neuromatch uses that information to do groupwise matching based on the abstracts you submitted while also using your ORCID id to avoid people you already know and collaborate with.

What happens during the event? The event will happen on zoom. During the event, there will be 2 rounds of matching. For each round, you will have been matched into a small group that is assigned to a particular breakout room. Each small group will also be provided a set of conversation prompts in the form of a word-cloud that was generated based on the group’s collective abstracts.

Code of Conduct: As with all VSS events, participants must follow the Society’s Anti-Harassment Policy