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2024 NAA Conference
Aurora, CO | June 14-15, 2024

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2024 Virtual Symposium

Recap Videos Now Available!

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The New Kids on the Block Were a Success!

The New Kids on the (NAA) Block, aka the Early Investigator Committee, are excited to share that the inaugural virtual symposium series was a great success!

We welcomed 115 attendees for our scientific symposium focused on emerging contributors to vascular dysfunction, which featured keynote speaker Dr. Lacy Alexander and highlighted the work of 7 trainees. Attendee feedback highlighted the appreciation for the emphasis placed on trainees and allowing the interaction between junior and senior investigators. We were thrilled to receive such positive feedback and cannot wait to continue highlighting all the great trainees and their work within the North American Artery (NAA) Society network!

Eighty-seven attendees joined us for our second symposium focused on career development. During this session we got back to the basics of arterial stiffness with a tutorial lecture from Dr. Kevin Heffernan and had an excellent career development panel targeting a discussion of overcoming obstacles with the 4 panelists including a clinician, industry expert, and professors at teaching and R1 institutions. We received positive feedback overall for this session, but we also learned a few lessons: (1) everybody loves learning or getting a refresher on the basics of some fundamental methods and (2) we need more time for Q&A when we have such a great panel!

We want to again thank everyone who joined us for the virtual symposia. We hope to bring another to your computer screen next year!

So, what’s next for the Early Investigator Committee?! Well, WE CANNOT WAIT TO SEE YOU IN COLORADO! We have a few exciting announcements for NAA2024 this June.

1) We really hope you took advantage of our new funding mechanism to help get trainees to the conference. We are very excited to dish out some travel awards this year!

2) We will be hosting an Early Investigator Happy Hour to kick off NAA2024 on the evening of Thursday, June 13th. Come meet some new friends or catch-up with old friends; either way, you can’t go wrong with a happy hour. The details are to come on the time and place, but know it will be so great even the non-early investigators will want to (and likely will) crash the party.

3) We will be hosting a roundtable early investigator breakfast on Saturday, June 15th during the conference on the theme of “transitions.” This theme was selected from questions received regarding this topic for our virtual panel. We will have several different tables of individuals ready to eat and chat with you about transitions such as pre-doc to post-doc; post-doc to professor; into industry; into teaching; and to/within medical careers.

Safe travels to everyone in June!

Excitedly, eagerly, and very enthusiastically,

Elizabeth Lefferts, EIC Co-Chair
Wesley Lefferts, EIC Co-Chair
The Early Investigator Committee