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Poster Guidelines

General Poster Information

Poster boards will be 8 ft. wide x 4 ft. high - this will be the maximum size allowable for a poster.  Tacks will be available for attaching the poster to the display board. Each board will be marked with an abstract number. 

Typically posters are arranged from left to right and top to bottom. Numbering sections or placing arrows between sections can help guide the viewer through the poster. 

Centered at the top of the poster, include a section with the title, author names and affiliations, and ARO abstract number. An institutional logo may be added.

The poster should include the following sections below the title:

      • Introduction (including background and objective)
      • Methods
      • Results (including data, figures, or tables)
      • Discussion
      • References and Acknowledgments 

Mount your materials on the fiberboard by means of push pins (thumbtacks), which will be provided. Since your display will be held on the fiberboard with push pins, DO NOT mount your presentation materials on heavy board because doing so may make it difficult to keep the material in position.

There is a FedEx onsite at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld for printing. Please note it may be busy due to demand from the meeting! Please see here for a link to the FedEx within the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld.  ARO recommends sending it in advance as it may take 2-3 days for printing.

Poster Design

Overall layout 

  • Poster boards will be 8 ft. wide x 4 ft. high - this will be the maximum size allowable for a poster.  Tacks will be available for attaching the poster to the display board. Each board will be marked with an abstract number. 
  • Typically posters are arranged from left to right and top to bottom. Numbering sections or placing arrows between sections can help guide the viewer through the poster. 
  • Centered at the top of the poster, include a section with the title, author names and affiliations, and ARO abstract number. An institutional logo may be added.The poster should include the following sections below the title:
  • Introduction (including background and objective)
  • Methods
  • Results (including data, figures, or tables)
  • Discussion
  • References and Acknowledgments 

 

All information below is optional but highly encouraged*

Guidelines for text

  • Font sizes should be at least the sizes specified for each element below. All elements should be large enough to read from 6 feet away (typical poster viewing distance).
    • Title: Ideal is 158 point font.  Use at least 72 point font or larger for poster titles to be viewable from 10-15 feet away.
    • Author and affiliations: Use at least 72 point font.
    • Section headers (such as Introduction, Methods, etc.): Ideal is 54 point font. Use at least 46-54 point font.
    • Main text within each section should be large enough to facilitate readability from 6 feet away.  Ideal is 36 point font.  Use at least 24-36 point font.
    • References and Acknowledgments: Use at least 20 - 24 point font.
  • Font types: Sans serif fonts (e.g., Arial, Calibri, Helvetica) are much easier to read and visually accessible than serif fonts (e.g., Times New Roman).
  • Text should be brief and presented in a bullet-point list as much as possible. Long paragraphs are difficult to read in a poster presentation setting. 

 

Guidelines for visuals

  • Figures, photos, and images should similarly be large enough to view from 6 feet away.
  • Be redundant in how you present information - use different line textures (e.g. solid and dashed lines) and shapes (e.g. circles and triangles) for each group.  Do not rely on color alone!
  • Choose your color palettes carefully with an eye toward accessibility for those with color blindness 
  • For more details on maximizing visual impact and accessibility, check out this helpful tutorial (link to workshop accessibility PDF here?)

 

Guidelines for poster presentation

  • Prepare a brief oral summary of your poster that covers the key points of the poster so that the audience can understand the main findings. 
  • It is recommended that authors practice their poster presentation in front of colleagues before the meeting. 
Accessibility Tips & Tricks for Presenting

The ARO Accessibility Committee recommends the following tools to help check your presentations/posters for colorblind accessibility. Please use one or more of these tools to check and ensure your presentation is accessible for all.

Tip 1:   Be redundant in how you present information

  • Visualize audio stimuli
  • Use essential labels or text to understand the figure without having to rely 100% on what you’re saying
  • Use different line textures or shapes for each condition/group

Tip 2:   Slow down and pause after important points 

  • Allows time to process what you are saying
  • Allows for automatic captioning time to align with what you’re saying

Tip 3:   Choose your color palettes carefully 

  • Be aware of color combinations that are hard for some to distinguish
  • Check your presentation and palette color choices using the online tools provided here

 

 

Tip 4:   Incorporate high contrast elements

  • Increase contrast using color
  • Increasing contrast by adding white borders around data points / shapes

Tip 5:   Increase clarity of text and data 

  • Aim for larger text and data points
  • Use distinctive shapes for group/condition comparisons
  • Use sans serif font (e.g., Arial, Helvetica)

 

Use the following tools to further improve colorblind and other vision accessibility.

Great online resources for visualization and accessibility:

Onsite Set Up Guidelines

Onsite Set Up Guidelines

On your designated date, you will set your poster. ARO allows for posters to be up for 23 hours; so please have your poster down by noon the next day. Details on your presentation date were included in your presentation acceptance letter.

e-Poster Upload

All poster presenters are required to have their e-Posters uploaded by February 8, 2023. *Note: It takes up to 24 hours after uploading the e-poster for it to show in the gallery. This includes last minute uploads during the live meeting.
 
 To begin your e-Poster upload, log in to the SUBMISSIONS DASHBOARD. After logging in, click the 'MidWinter MTG Actions' button to begin the process. The process is as below:

1. Upload e-Poster (Upload only 1 e-Poster Image). REQUIRED *

File types to upload include: PDF, PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF. Images will be interactive and allow the user to zoom in/out. *PDF's are allowed (1 page only) but lose resolution when enlarged (blurred) and is not recommended.

2. Upload voice poster file. REQUIRED *

3. Upload an audio recording of a 1-3 minute presentation summary of your poster. When the audio file is uploaded, when attendees view your e-poster they will be able to listen to your audio presentation.

4. Upload a transcript of your poster, please upload text only - no slide images. REQUIRED *
5. Attest: I attest I have reviewed the instructions to create my in-person and e-poster to align with colorblind accessibility standards. *
The ARO Accessibility Committee requires presenters utilize the tools to help check presentations/posters for colorblind accessibility. Please use one or more of these tools to ensure your presentation is accessible for all! View the information from the conference website, Presenter Information

 
Registered ARO attendees will be able to view the e-posters prior to the meeting and viewing will remain open until 30 days post-meeting.

Hearing loss can significantly disrupt the ability of children to become mainstreamed in educational environments that emphasize spoken language as a primary means of communication. Similarly, adults who lose their hearing after communicating using spoken language have numerous challenges understanding speech and integrating into social situations. These challenges are particularly significant in noisy situations, where multiple sound sources often arrive at the ears from various directions. Intervention with hearing aids and/or cochlear implants (CIs) has proven to be highly successful for restoring some aspects of communication, including speech understanding and language acquisition. However, there is also typically a notable gap in outcomes relative to normal-hearing listeners. Importantly, auditory abilities operate in the context of how hearing integrates with other senses. Notably, the visual system is tightly couples to the auditory system. Vision is known to impact auditory perception and neural mechanisms in vision and audition are tightly coupled, thus, in order to understand how we hear and how CIs affect auditory perception we must consider the integrative effects across these senses.

We start with Rebecca Alexander, a compelling public speaker who has been living with Usher’s Syndrome, a genetic disorder found in tens of thousands of people, causing both deafness and blindness in humans. Ms. Alexander will be introduced by Dr. Jeffrey Holt, who studies gene therapy strategies for hearing restoration. The symposium then highlights the work of scientists working across these areas. Here we integrate psychophysics, clinical research, and biological approaches, aiming to gain a coherent understanding of how we might ultimately improve outcomes in patients. Drs. Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik are new to the ARO community, and will discuss neurobiology of the visual system as it relates to visual prostheses. Dr. Jennifer Groh’s work will then discuss multi-sensory processing and how it is that vision helps us hear. Having set the stage for thinking about the role of vision in a multisensory auditory world, we will hear from experts in the area of cochlear implants. Dr. René H Gifford will discuss recent work on electric-acoustic integration in children and adults, and Dr. Sharon Cushing will discuss her work as a clinician on 3-D auditory and vestibular effects. Dr. Matthew Winn will talk about cognitive load and listening effort using pupillometry, and we will end with Dr. Rob Shepherd’s discussion of current work and future possibilities involving biological treatments and neural prostheses. Together, these presentations are designed to provide a broad and interdisciplinary view of the impact of sensory restoration in hearing, vision and balance, and the potential for future approaches for improving the lives of patients.

Kirupa Suthakar, PhD - Dr Kirupa Suthakar is a postdoctoral fellow at NIH/NIDCD, having formerly trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School and doctoral student at Garvan Institute of Medical Research/UNSW Australia.  Kirupa's interest in the mind and particular fascination by how we are able to perceive the world around us led her to pursue a research career in auditory neuroscience.  To date, Kirupa's research has broadly focused on neurons within the auditory efferent circuit, which allow the brain to modulate incoming sound signals at the ear.  Kirupa is active member of the spARO community, serving as the Chair Elect for 2021.

 

 

I began studying the vestibular system during my dissertation research at the Università di Pavia with Professors Ivo Prigioni and GianCarlo Russo. I had two postdoctoral fellowships, first at the University of Rochester with Professor Christopher Holt and then at the University of Illinois at Chicago with Professors Jonathan Art and Jay Goldberg.

My research focuses on characterizing the biophysics of synaptic transmission between hair cells and primary afferents in the vestibular system. For many years an outstanding question in vestibular physiology was how the transduction current in the type I hair cell was sufficient, in the face of large conductances on at rest, to depolarize it to potentials necessary for conventional synaptic transmission with its unique afferent calyx.

In collaboration with Dr. Art, I overcame the technical challenges of simultaneously recording from type I hair cells and their enveloping calyx afferent to investigate this question. I was able to show that with depolarization of either hair cell or afferent, potassium ions accumulating in the cleft depolarize the synaptic partner. Conclusions from these studies are that due to the extended apposition between type I hair cell and its afferent, there are three modes of communication across the synapse. The slowest mode of transmission reflects the dynamic changes in potassium ion concentration in the cleft which follow the integral of the ongoing hair cell transduction current. The intermediate mode of transmission is indirectly a result of this potassium elevation which serves as the mechanism by which the hair cell potential is depolarized to levels necessary for calcium influx and the vesicle fusion typical of glutamatergic quanta. This increase in potassium concentration also depolarizes the afferent to potentials that allow the quantal EPSPs to trigger action potentials. The third and most rapid mode of transmission like the slow mode of transmission is bidirectional, and a current flowing out of either hair cell or afferent into the synaptic cleft will divide between a fraction flowing out into the bath, and a fraction flowing across the cleft into its synaptic partner.

The technical achievement of the dual electrode approach has enabled us to identify new facets of vestibular end organ synaptic physiology that in turn raise new questions and challenges for our field. I look forward with great excitement to the next chapter in my scientific story.

 

Charles C. Della Santina, PhD MD is a Professor of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he directs the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Implant Center and the Johns Hopkins Vestibular NeuroEngineering Laboratory.

As a practicing neurotologic surgeon, Dr. Della Santina specializes in treatment of middle ear, inner ear and auditory/vestibular nerve disorders. His clinical interests include restoration of hearing via cochlear implantation and management of patients who suffer from vestibular disorders, with a particular focus on helping individuals disabled by chronic postural instability and unsteady vision after bilateral loss of vestibular sensation. His laboratory’s research centers on basic and applied research supporting development of vestibular implants, which are medical devices intended to partially restore inner ear sensation of head movement. In addition to that work, his >90 publications include studies characterizing inner ear physiology and anatomy; describing novel clinical tests of vestibular function; and clarifying the effects of cochlear implantation, vestibular implantation, superior canal dehiscence syndrome and intratympanic gentamicin therapy on the inner ear and central nervous system.  Dr. Della Santina is also the founder and CEO/Chief Scientific Officer of Labyrinth Devices LLC, a company dedicated to bringing novel vestibular testing and implant technology into routine clinical care.

Andrew Griffith received his MD and PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University in 1992. He completed his general surgery internship and a residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Michigan in 1998. He also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Department of Human Genetics as part of his training at the University of Michigan. In 1998, he joined the Division of Intramural Research (DIR) in the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). He served as a senior investigator, the chief of the Molecular Biology and Genetics Section, the chief of the Otolaryngology Branch, and the director of the DIR, as well as the deputy director for Intramural Clinical Research across the NIH Intramural Research Program. His research program identifies and characterizes molecular and cellular mechanisms of normal and disordered hearing and balance in humans and mouse models. Two primary interests of his program have been hearing loss associated with enlargement of the vestibular aqueduct, and the function of TMC genes and proteins. The latter work lead to the discovery that the deafness gene product TMC1 is a component of the hair cell sensory transduction channel. Since July of 2020, he has served as the Senior Associate Dean of Research and a Professor of Otolaryngology and Physiology in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

Gwenaëlle S. G. Géléoc obtained a PhD in Sensory Neurobiology from the University of Sciences in Montpellier (France) in 1996. She performed part of her PhD training at the University of Sussex, UK where she characterized sensory transduction in vestibular hair cells and a performed a comparative study between vestibular and cochlear hair cells. Gwenaelle continued her training as an electrophysiologist at University College London studying outer hair cell motility and at Harvard Medical School studying modulation of mechanotransduction in vestibular hair cells. As an independent investigator at the University of Virginia, she expanded this work and characterized the developmental acquisition of sensory transduction in mouse vestibular hair cells, the developmental acquisition of voltage-sensitive conductances in vestibular hair cells and the tonotopic gradient in the acquisition of sensory transduction in the mouse cochlea. This work along with quantitative spatio-temporal studies performed on several hair cell mechanotransduction candidates lead her to TMC1 and 2 and long-term collaborations with Andrew Griffith and Jeff Holt. Dr. Géléoc is currently Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, at Boston Children’s Hospital where she continues to study molecular players involved in the development and function of hair cells of the inner ear and develops new therapies for the treatment of deafness and balance, with a particular focus on Usher syndrome.

Jeff Holt earned a doctorate from the Department of Physiology at the University of Rochester in 1995 for his studies of inward rectifier potassium channels in saccular hair cells.  He went on to a post-doctoral position in the Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he characterized sensory transduction and adaptation in hair cells and developed a viral vector system to transfect cultured hair cells.  Dr. Holt’s first faculty position was in the Neuroscience Department at the University of Virginia.  In 2011 the lab moved to Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Holt is currently a Professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology and Neurology in the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center.  Dr. Holt and his team have been studying sensory transduction in auditory and vestibular hair cells over the past 20 years, with particular focus on TMC1 and TMC2 over the past 12 years.  This work lead to the discovery that TMC1 forms the hair cell transduction channel.  His work also focuses on development gene therapy strategies for genetic hearing loss.​