Dear CSDH-SCHN Community,

As we plan for our annual meeting we are taking the recent spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) very seriously. The CSDH-SCHN Program Committee and the CSDH-SCHN Executive met this week and have decided that, for our 2020 meeting, we are going to make the move to an online conference instead of having an in-person conference. 

We made the decision to move our conference online, instead of cancelling it outright, for several reasons. Taking your health into consideration was vital, but we also want to continue our work to support graduate students and contingent faculty and to make it possible for them to present the wonderful work they are doing. Having an online conference allows for a different level of engagement, allows us to learn and benefit from each other’s research, and can lead to more sustainable methods of conferencing in the future. We are excited to think through an innovative method of communication for 2020 and hope that many of the accepted participants, as well as others from around the world who are interested to see what CSDH-SCHN is up to,  are willing to take part!

We are currently working out the best way to go about this, but those of you that have had papers accepted to the conference should be prepared to submit a version of your talk, either as a written draft or a powerpoint with voice-over,  in advance of the conference and follow forthcoming instructions on uploading them for distribution. We know it is unlikely that we will be able to adhere to the three-day schedule that Congress allows us and will instead work with an extended schedule that allows for sessions to take place over one week. Please bear with us while we determine the necessary steps and which technologies we may lean on to help make this possible. 

Stay healthy and take good care of each other, 

Kim Martin, on behalf of the CSDH-SCHN 2020 Conference PC and the CSDH-SCHN Executive Committee