In 2026, our APPA conference starts early Tuesday morning, March 17, Saint Patrick’s Day.
(A pre-conference event of note is the Boston Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, now scheduled to start at 1:00 pm EST on Sunday, March 15.
APPA registrants from a distance might consider a weekend trip to Boston to enjoy these famous festivities. Search: Boston Saint Patrick’s Day Parade for details.)
Ordinarily, APPA holds a ‘Trainee Workshop’ on the afternoon and evening just prior to the very early morning start of the formal APPA conference the following day.
In 2026 we are broadening the scope of the ‘Trainee Workshop’ to include a ‘Pre-Conference Event’ program that is intended to be useful to trainees, and to gain networking and other benefits by engaging early stage and new investigators beyond the training career phase. We also are inviting all APPA registrants to attend the pre-conference events, irrespective of career stage (i.e., all across the career spectrum from trainee through emeritus values).
For this reason, what formerly was called the ‘APPA Trainee Workshop’ now is re-named as our ‘Pre-Conference Events Program.’
This year, we also take into account that conference registrants may wish to travel to Boston on Monday, March 16, and might not arrive until mid-afternoon on Monday.
For this reason, in place of the typical mid-day start of the Trainee Workshop (noon-1 PM), instead we will start the Pre-Conference Events Program at the Boston Hilton Park Plaza Hotel at mid-afternoon, with our registration desks open by 2:00 PM EST.
In order to promote greater interaction of attendees during the pre-conference proceedings, we have shifted the format away from the formerly traditional series of plenary platform presentations.
Instead, after an initial and relatively brief plenary ‘meet and greet’ session, we will shift to breakout sessions that promote interaction between the attendees with an aim to give all trainees and non-trainee attendees a chance to meet new colleagues and friends and to share their psychopathology research hopes and fears for the future. APPA always has had a strong tradition of forging collegial relationships and career networking. It is our hope that these pre-conference breakout sessions will sustain and strengthen these facets of our annual March conference program.
Please watch for the details on these March 16 PM pre-conference breakout sessions from time to time as we get closer to mid-March. Our selection of breakout events will be guided by some ‘quick online polls’ of those who register by the December 23rd early bird registration date, as well as the experts who regularly attend APPA, the psychopathology-related NIH training program directors, and some invited guests with expertise in career-coaching, building strong psychopathology research alliances, and a willingness to serve in the ‘Meet With Experts’ small group offerings.
As evening approaches, the final formal pre-conference event will be a plenary ‘stand up’ program and APPA reception (with limited seating as required for accessibility reasons). Our plan is to give each willing attendee-volunteer a chance to give a brief platform presentation akin to an ‘elevator pitch’ that describes psychopathology research project plans for the future, active on-going projects, and hopes for what is to come.
Consistent with the aim of the pre-conference events to promote across-the-spectrum interactions and exchange, we will recruit ‘elevator pitch’ volunteers across the spectrum from trainee-to-emeritus once we have a working list of attendees based on the early bird registration list.
Our plan is to limit this final plenary session to 90-120 minutes with a start time of 5:00 PM and formal ending no later than 7:00 PM. If we have too many volunteers who wish to give a platform presentation during this event, we’ll work out a way to make use of the ample hotel conferencing facilities, possibly with a mix that involves a poster overview in addition to a platform presentation limit to 4-5 minutes.
Finally, about beverages and refreshments, we face some cost constraints because this event has no additional registration charge. However, beverage options will be available during the pre-conference event, and there will be a modest smorgasbord at the final plenary session. Once we end the pre-conference program by the 7 PM deadline, we’ll encourage attendees to migrate to the nearby M.J. O’Connors location inside the hotel building for a continuation of informal social interactions and that establishment’s celebration of the eve of Saint Patrick’s Day.
We hope to see you there in the afternoon and evening of March 16th, and to welcome you to enjoy this renovation of what formerly were trainee-limited elements of the APPA pre-conference program.
We are grateful that the past APPA trainee workshops and this year’s APPA Pre-Conference Events Program have received generous support from individual donors as well as the Society for Biological Psychiatry, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as well as other organizations. Of course, this support does not imply endorsement or agreement with the content of these programmatic activities.