2026 PROGRAM
The event will be held at the Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan and published here after the 9th of December.
2026 GUEST LECTURES
JOYITA DUTTA, PhD – UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
Dr. Joyita Dutta is a tenured Full Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received her BTech (Honors) from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur and MS and PhD from the University of Southern California.
She directs the Biomedical Imaging and Data Science Laboratory (BIDSLab) at UMass Amherst, which develops signal processing and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for image, graph, and time-series datasets. Her scientific contributions include the development of a broad range of tools for medical image enhancement and reconstruction with a focus on multimodality information integration. Her current research interests include developing AI approaches for the diagnosis and prognosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Dutta was the recipient of the 2016 SNMMI Tracy Lynn Faber Memorial Award and the 2016 IEEE Bruce Hasegawa Young Investigator Medical Imaging Science Award. Dr. Dutta has served as a member of the SNMMI AI Task Force and the Program Chair for the 2022 IEEE Medical Imaging Conference in Milan, Italy. She is the Immediate Past President of the SNMMI Physics, Instrumentation and Data Sciences Council (PIDSC). Her trainees at BIDSLab have been awarded prestigious extramural training grants from the SNMMI, IEEE, APS, and AAUW.
NICHOLAS SEYFRIED, DPHIL – EMORY UNIVERSITY
Dr. Nicholas T. Seyfried obtained his B.S. in biological chemistry from Boston College and his D.Phil. in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford.
During his postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University School of Medicine he employed cell-based quantitative proteomics methodologies to characterize protein aggregation and post-translational modification events that underlie neurodegenerative diseases. He also developed immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) techniques for the enrichment of phosphopeptides from human brain tissue.
Prior to this work, Dr. Seyfried held a postdoctoral research position in the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center at the University of Georgia. Here his research focused on the use of hydrogen/deuterium amide exchange Fourier transform mass spectrometry as a method to study protein-carbohydrate interactions.
Dr. Seyfried is currently Professor of Biochemistry and Neurology and is a member of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease at Emory University School of Medicine.
DIETMAR THAL, MD, PhD – KU LEUVEN
Dr.Dietmar R. Thal, MD, PhD is Professor for Neuropathology at KU-Leuven (Leuven, Belgium). He is head of the Laboratory of Neuropathology.
Dr. Thal’s research focuses on the neuropathology of amyloid β -protein deposition, tau and TDP-43 pathology in Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrohic lateral sclerosis. He described phases of Aβ -plaque deposition in the human brain yet integrated into the recommended criteria for the neuropathological diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease by the NIA-AA, types of cerebral amyloid angiopathy related to the APOE genotype, the pattern of necroptosis and pyroptosis activation in the Alzheimer’s disease brain, and a primary retinal tauopathy.
Dr. Thal’s projects are currently funded by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen, Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek (SAO/FRA, Belgium), KU-Leuven internal funding, Alzheimer’s Association (USA), and the Target ALS Foundation (USA).