During the pandemic, I have been both inspired and humbled by the resiliency and dedication of the SNO membership who, despite many obstacles, have remained focused and steadfast in their commitment to advance the field of neuro-oncology and improve outcomes for our patients.

If there is a silver lining to the current situation, it is that SNO has been given the opportunity to re-evaluate and improve our education delivery platforms and virtual learning initiatives. As a result, this year SNO has engaged with more learners and delivered more educational content to our members than at any time in our 25-year history.

SNO has organized a wide range of special interest conferences and events this year, and I am sincerely grateful to the chairs for organizing these outstanding educational events.  In addition to our conferences, SNO has developed a very successful webinar series with live broadcasts that are later archived and accessible on-demand. SNO members can look forward to more content on to be delivered via a new electronic learning platform that will be launched in early 2022.

SNO is of course looking forward to returning to in-person meetings, and the chairs of our main scientific meeting, Priscilla Brastianos, Albert Kim and Farshad Nassiri, have been working incredibly hard since January – under unique and challenging circumstances – to develop an outstanding 2021 educational program for our annual meeting in Boston. New this year to SNO, is what I introduced as “TRACKS” that are speciality focus groups within the SNO society -similar to what Sections represent at AANS/CNS. The TRACKS have been a huge success, with broad membership support and adoption. This year for the scientific meeting the subject matter “Tracks” provided an additional layer of abstract review, and offered invaluable insights to the chairs as they assembled the final program. Ultimately, the safety and wellbeing of our members is our number one priority, and SNO remains in close communication with our event partners in Boston so we can be nimble in reacting to any changes that may be necessary as we approach the meeting in November.

Importantly, we have focused on building Women and Diversity committee, and together with the input of this committee Chas Haynes and myself will be leading the initiative to incorporate Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Respect as a key strategic priority for SNO.

Thanks to SNO’s engaged leadership, active membership, and dedicated staff, I am confident that SNO is well-positioned to meet the challenges that lie ahead.  SNO therefore enthusiastically looks forward to the future, enriched and made stronger by the experiences of the pandemic. The Society welcomes the opportunity to provide the broader neuro-oncology community with an expanded platform for connectivity and exploration, and to usher in the next generation of advances in research and clinical care for patients with neurological malignancies.