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The 2019 ASPNR Derek Harwood-Nash Award was awarded to Shiva Shahrampour of Thomas Jefferson University for her work presented at the 57^th ASNR Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts on Development of a Standardized Normative Pediatric Spinal Cord Structural Template: Demonstration of an Automatic Estimation of Spinal Cord Cross Sectional Area Measurements (SCCSA).

Synopsis: The purpose of this work is to create a structural MRI-based template of the normal pediatric spinal cord by combining T2w MR scans of several typically developing subjects.  As a demonstration of the utilization of this template, spinal cord cross sectional area was computed at disc levels in all subjects.  This work is the first to create a standardized template of the spinal cord in pediatric subjects.  The significance of this work is directly related to the need for normative pediatric references for imaging biomarkers such as SCCSA, to enable clinical interpretation of studies done on patients with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). The standardized template will facilitate group and single subject analysis in a standardized 3D space, controlling for variability among age-matched subjects. Furthermore, this template is needed to ensure the possibility of assessing specific spinal tracts to further advance our understanding of the microstructure of the spinal cord in children.

Shiva Shahrampour completed her masters in Bioengineering at Temple University in December 2014. She is currently a PhD candidate at Temple University and a research assistant in the radiology department at Thomas Jefferson University.  Her current research focuses on developing a normative spinal cord template in children as well as evaluating individual spinal tracts using automatic delineation of motor and sensory pathways based on a white matter atlas. This data could assist in extracting tract-specific diffusion biomarker information relevant for identifying pathologies in SCI.

On May 20^th 2019, during the ASNR conference in Boston, ASPNR members, friends, and supporters enjoyed the first ever promotional Fundraiser for the ASPNR.  Revved up by the success of the first ever ASPNR meeting in New Orleans last January 2019, Paul Caruso from the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children in Boston organized the event as an after-conference fundraiser to benefit the new ASPNR meetings. What started as an informal musing between Paul and cohosts Michelle Silvera and Susan Palasis late one night during the NOLA meeting back in January, steadily gained momentum over the next few months as more and more support emerged from local New England companies who felt a connection to the mission of the ASPNR.

Steven FAVREAU, a local Boston interior designer, and partner Dennis WYRZKOWSKI got things rolling by donating their one-of-a-kind 11,000 square-foot design studio to the fundraiser. This generous offer was quickly followed by sponsorships from Berkshire Mountain Distillers, Boston’s Cava Catering, New Hampshire’s Tiffany’s Bagel Café, and Rhode Island’s DJ Pauly that lent the event a distinctively local New England flavor and that naturally gave rise to the name New-England-Loves-the-ASPNR Promotional Party.  Local branches of global industry leaders E4H Architecture-Environments for Health and Guerbet contributed their support and Dr. Bob Barr, the ASNR Program Chair helped spread the word.

Fueled by all this good will the fundraiser could not help but be a success. On the evening of May 20^th, some 220 guests walked into a kaleidoscopic luxurious space where butterfly chandeliers and bronze palm trees hold court with Greco-Roman statuary and hedgehog handbags. Welcomed by the sounds of harp strings, rocked by dance music, and treated to delicious food and signature cocktails, guests enjoyed an upbeat evening that brought us together to relax, to socialize, and to foster the sense of community that, along with great education and intellectual content, is one of the missions of the ASPNR meetings.  With tremendous gratitude to Paul Caruso, Paul’s partner Andre Silvestre, our sponsors, and with special thanks to all the ASPNR members and supporters who made the party so wonderful, we now turn to Miami 2020!