Detail of the expense: The only cost to attend this meeting is the registration fees of $175 (https://meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.aspx?meet=GLIA&year=20)

Description of the event:
I plan to virtually attend Cold Spring Harbor’s Glia in Health & Disease, which is being held from July 16-20, 2020. Although this is a scientific conference, I believe this meeting will be tremendously useful for enhancing my professional development skills in the following ways:
•	The theme of this meeting is glial cells, which is also the focus of my thesis project. Since I have decided that I want to pursue a career in academia and as I approach my fifth year, I will be actively looking for postdoctoral opportunities after a few months. The organizers and presenters (such as Nicola Allen, Anna Molofsky, and Vassilis Pachnis) are some of the most-established leaders in the field of glia. I strongly believe attending this conference will help me in building a connection with these neuroscientists. Meeting them in this meeting will help me to learn what skills they look for while hiring postdocs in their labs.
•	Moreover, I also plan to meet some of the current trainees that are in the labs I am interested. Learning their experiences will help me in getting an idea about the environment and expectations of the labs they are in and determine if it fits with what I am looking for. 
•	My original plan was to attend specific workshops organized by Cold Spring Harbor but as most of these meetings are being cancelled (https://meetings.cshl.edu/courses.html), I believe attending this glia meeting will be useful to me since it provides the opportunity to meet these neuroscientists in a different setting. 
I believe my interest in attending this conference aligns well with the mission of BEST’s mission. Although this is an academic conference, I believe it will provide me with opportunities to enhance my skills to become a competitive postdoctoral candidate. I hope the committee looks favorably on my application.