Name: Kimberly Byrnes, President

Position: Professor and Director of the Neuroscience PhD Program

Affiliation: Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Research interests: Brain and spinal cord trauma; Inflammation

Past roles with NNS: Vice-President; Secretary/Treasurer

Who or what inspires you: I've been inspired by a number of people throughout my life. My graduate school PI inspired me to delve into neurotrauma research, my grad school program director inspired me to aspire to leadership, especially as a woman in science, and my son inspires me to approach every day as a unique opportunity to experience the wonder of the world.

Your goal(s) for this mandate: I'm thankful and excited to have the opportunity to serve as the 2022/23 NNS President. This year, our goals are to grow and strengthen our committee structure and improve the offerings that the society has for our membership beyond our exceptional yearly symposium. We've a number of web-based roundtable discussions planned for 2023, and are putting into place the structure to keep this offering going into the future. We've also a number of plans to improve our diversity and inclusion initiatives, including development of a new Diversity VISA program that we'll be developing for this coming year.