This article was first published on Computer Vision News of May 2022.
Jasmin Metzger and Peter Neher are research scientists working in Klaus Maier-Hein’s Medical Image Computing Division at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). They are co-organizing this year’s BVM Workshop 2022 to be held on June 26-28 in Heidelberg, Germany. Together with Klaus, they speak to us about what we can expect to see at the event next month.
Established in 1993, the BVM workshop is an annual event where the mostly local computer vision community can come together. It is typically an informal and intimate affair, with around 100-150 participants, attracting young scientists and students who are looking to grow into the community, amongst more experienced members.
“It’s like a family meeting of the German medical image processing community,” Peter tells us.
“International events, which we all obviously want to go to, can be a bit overwhelming. This is one of the few situations where the whole German community can come together. That’s the most appealing part.”
Being a German event, many of the talks and much of the discussion is in German, but everyone is also free to present and speak in English.
Last year, BVM 2021 went virtual, after organizers planned for several scenarios in the face of an ever-changing pandemic. This year, the team have focused on organizing a physical event and, despite having to reschedule once already, are determined the show will go on and everyone will finally be able to meet in person.
Klaus tells us he is honored to be hosting the event in Heidelberg again:
“Year after year, BVM continues to engage AI and imaging scientists from several countries and all career stages. This is an ideal conference to exchange the newest scientific ideas as well as personal updates in an extremely familiar atmosphere.”
The scientific value of the event has been growing in recent years. Peter, who has been attending BVM for a decade now and co-organized the workshop in 2013, has witnessed this change first-hand.
“Organization of the event rotates every year, and we have new university partners and new professors now who have advertised it a lot more amongst their students,” he points out.
“In the beginning, BVM was more like a get-together and the scientific content was nice to have, but people didn’t usually publish their most important results or findings here. Now, the spirit is changing, and I see particularly in the deep learning area that it’s completely valid to publish your new results at BVM. That’s reflected in this year’s program.”
Jasmin adds that switching to different submission formats has been another important change:
“We have plenty of fresh work from young and older scientists, but we also have one-pager abstracts of papers which have already been accepted or published at other conferences or in journals.”
There will be three keynotes with topics from local and international speakers, including Mihaela van der Schaar from the University of Cambridge, Stefanie Speidel from NCT Dresden, and Ullrich Köthe from the Visual Learning Lab at the University of Heidelberg.
Awards and prizes will be given out at the event for the best talks and posters, as voted for by attendees, as well as a selection of star submissions, chosen and ranked by the BVM Committee, including Klaus Maier-Hein, Christoph Palm, and Andreas Maier. People have also been busy submitting applications for a special BVM Award for the best thesis in the field of medical image processing. This is separate from the event itself, but the award and a cash prize will be given out during the proceedings.
The main workshop runs on Monday and Tuesday, and on the Monday night, there is an exciting community event planned: a catered cruise along the Neckar River.
“We very much hope we are allowed to do it,” Peter tells us.
“You’re on a boat. No one can escape. You have to mingle!” Jasmin laughs. But with such good German food and drink on offer, we do not think people will need much persuading.
“Good food, but heavy food!” Peter adds, laughing.
The German Cancer Research Center is part of the Helmholtz Association, one of the biggest research foundations in Germany, with strong ties to the University of Heidelberg and the University Hospital Heidelberg.
Peter’s work at the Division of Medical Image Computing has been varied since completing his PhD, and he now coordinates one of its subgroups.
“My area of expertise is diffusion-weighted MR image processing; reconstructing nerve fibres in the brain and analyzing them in case of pathologies,” he tells us.
Jasmin went down a different route after getting her diploma. She did not do a PhD but has been working in research for 10 years now.
“I’m more in the project coordination part,” she says.
“Since my parental leave last year, I’ve been working at the Kaapana platform, which is a platform for deploying AI methods to different sites. Currently we have this platform installed at a number of university clinics.”
With so many young scientists and students in attendance at BVM, what advice do the team have for those young people who are attending their first event this year and want to make the best of it?
“Just pick the parts that are really interesting for you and use the occasion to network with your peers,” Peter advises.
“To make extra space due to Covid, we’ve extended the poster sessions this year. There are three sessions with fewer posters each. This gives you the opportunity to really talk about the content, which is so much more important than hearing every talk and trying to understand every paper.”
Jasmin adds:
“Don’t forget to check out the tutorials on Sunday. We have three this year and they’re all really cool. I highly recommend them for students. You’ll also have an extra day in Heidelberg, and that is pretty cool as well!”
Klaus offers a final thought:
“After two virtual events, this year’s BVM is the perfect opportunity for young PhD students to mingle with the German medical image processing community and expand their research network.”
Keep reading the Medical Imaging News section of our magazine.
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