A Note from the Chair

Dear colleagues, innovators, and friends,

HAI 2026 is now behind us—and I leave it with the same feeling I have carried from this meeting since its earliest days: gratitude, confidence in the science, and renewed respect for this community.

Over three days in San Juan, we did what HAI has always done best. We shared data that was genuinely new. We asked difficult questions. We debated interpretations openly and, at times, vigorously. And we did so in a setting that values clarity over spectacle and dialogue over declaration. That balance is not accidental—it is sustained by the people who choose to come, year after year, ready to engage seriously with the work.

What continues to distinguish HAI is not scale, but focus. Talks are brief by design. Discussion is protected by design. Posters are not peripheral; they are central. Mentoring is not symbolic; it is structured and intentional. These choices matter. They create the conditions in which ideas are tested, refined, and sometimes re-thought entirely.

This year’s meeting reinforced something I believe deeply: progress in Alzheimer’s imaging does not come from consensus alone. It comes from careful disagreement, methodological rigor, and the willingness to listen closely—even when the answers are incomplete. That spirit was present in every session.

I am grateful to the speakers, chairs, poster presenters, mentors, and reviewers who invested their time and intellectual energy into this meeting. I am equally grateful to those attending for the first time, whose questions and perspectives continue to push the field forward. And I thank our sponsors and partners for supporting a meeting that prioritizes substance over scale.

HAI will continue. The conversations that began—or resumed—here will carry on in laboratories, clinics, and collaborations around the world. When we reconvene, we will do so with new data, new questions, and the same commitment to thoughtful, open scientific exchange.

Until then, thank you for making HAI what it is.