Yifan Wang Attends COGNESTIC 2026 in Cambridge and MICCAI 2026 in Strasbourg

Yifan Wang, a doctoral student in the FSU Department of Scientific Computing, has just returned from two events in Europe: the COGNESTIC 2026 summer school at the University of Cambridge, followed by the MICCAI 2026 conference in Strasbourg, France.

COGNESTIC 2026 in Cambridge

In March we announced that Yifan had been accepted to COGNESTIC, the Cognitive Neuroimaging Skills Training in Cambridge summer school. From 14 to 25 September she took part in the program at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge.

The two-week course teaches open and reproducible neuroimaging analysis through programming rather than graphical tools. It covers MRI data handling and the BIDS standard, structural and diffusion MRI, fMRI preprocessing and analysis, and EEG/MEG, using open-source Python software such as Nilearn, MNE-Python, DiPy and fMRIPrep. The program also includes talks by principal investigators at the unit and visits to its fMRI, EEG/MEG and TMS laboratories.

MICCAI 2026 in Strasbourg

Yifan then attended MICCAI 2026, the 29th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, held in Strasbourg from 27 September to 1 October. The conference brings together researchers working on medical image analysis, machine learning for medical imaging, and computer-assisted interventions.

Looking ahead

The two events complement each other. COGNESTIC concentrated on the practical methods behind reproducible brain-imaging analysis, while MICCAI covered current computational research across medical imaging more broadly. Both connect to the lab's work on applying machine learning to health and medical imaging, and we look forward to Yifan bringing what she learned back to the group.

Welcome back, Yifan!