Camera: Apple iPhone 16 Pro Leica LUX app
Exposure: 1/1048
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 149mm equivalent
ISO: 50
It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Am trying to get back into the swing of things, post Hilari’s death, but everything has been brutally hard. Photos from this year’s ARVO were light. I did not do as much documentation of my friends and colleagues as I normally do during a meeting as despite ARVO being in my hometown of Salt Lake City this year, everything felt difficult and awkward, almost as if I am living in a dissociative state where nothing feels real. And I did not spend as much time with colleagues as I would have liked to see what is new in their lives and their families lives.
ARVO was absolutely a smaller meeting this year for sociopolitical reasons. The Trump administration’s moves on immigration and science meant that very few colleagues from Canada, and Europe were in attendance. Also, colleagues from the NIH were also not allowed to travel, even as private citizens which was bizarre and fundamentally disturbing. One of the best attended sessions I was in focused upon science funding and the future of the NIH/NEI which has funded most of my career in vision science. There are moves in the Trump administration to dissolve the NEI which would be a grave disservice to science and public heath.
Regardless, it was good to see those friends and colleagues who were in attendance at ARVO, and I absolutely felt the love which was good for my heart and soul. Thank you all for that.
The science this year was solid and I had a few interactions with folks that changed my thinking on some scientific topics which was awesome. A conversation with Seth Blackshaw on retinal transplantation was amazing, and I forwarded some other ideas on retinal ganglion cell survival, growth and transplantation that I’ve been pushing around in my head for some time to a colleague of mine that we are absolutely going to be following up on in the coming months. More on that to come.
