SANS 2025

April 23-26, 2025
Chicago, USA

Join us for the SANS 2025 Annual Meeting, an exciting interdisciplinary conference showcasing diverse topics and viewpoints on social and affective neuroscience. Our symposia will cover stimulating and timely topics representing multiple perspectives on affective neuroscience.

We expect over 350 attendees, from students and post-docs to faculty and researchers!

Conference Program

See what’s planned for the SANS 2025 Conference.
Learn more here

Accommodation

Book at the Conference hotel before March 15, 2025 and benefit from a discounted rate.
Learn more here

Destination Chicago

Discover Chicago, the windy city, the venue, and how to get there!
Learn more here

Join us for SANS 2025

Ajay B. Satpute

President

Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS)

Have you wondered about what makes people “connect” with each other? Why people have difficulty controlling their feelings? Or how our close personal relationships foster well-being?

The Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS) is dedicated to understanding the psychological and neural processes underlying emotion regulation, social network formation, close relationships, and more, as well as their role in promoting health and mitigating psychiatric illness.

On behalf of SANS, I invite you to join us for our annual conference, which attracts over 350 researchers and academics engaged in pioneering research. Taking place from April 23-26, 2025, in Chicago, IL, at the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel – Magnificent Mile. the conference offers exclusive opportunities for networking with SANS members.

Your support and attendance will play a vital role in the success of SANS and our collective goal of understanding how the brain gives rise to social and emotional well-being.

We look forward to welcoming you to Chicago!

Key Dates

Membership:
August 1, 2024 – 2024-2025 Membership Open
July 31, 2025 – 2024-2025 Membership Close

Abstracts:
September 16, 2024 – Abstracts and Travel Awards Open
December 30, 2024 – Abstracts and Travel Awards Close
January 29, 2025 – Notifications Sent
February 18, 2025 – Last Day to Confirm Participation

Registration:
November 7, 2024 – Now open – Register Here!
March 15, 2025 – Early Bird Registration Deadline
April 5, 2025 – Regular Registration Deadline

Room Booking:
March 23, 2025 – Hotel booking cut-off date

Symposia:
December 30, 2024 – Submission Deadline

Conference:
April 23, 2025 – Conference Begins
April 26, 2026 – Conference Ends

Program Co-Chairs

Elisa Baek

University of Southern California

Elisa Baek, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Social Connection Lab at the University of Southern California. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2019 and completed her postdoctoral training at UCLA. Elisa draws from methods and approaches from social psychology, neuroscience, network science, and communication to study what helps people feel socially connected to one another. Some of the ongoing work in her lab explores the role of information sharing in social connection, understanding the neuropsychological factors that characterize individual differences in subjective and objective social connection, and the factors that underlie successful persuasion.

João Guassi Moreira

University of Wisconsin

João Guassi Moreira is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where he directs the Computational Developmental Neuroscience Lab. He completed his Ph.D. and a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA between 2016 and 2024. João uses functional magnetic resonance imaging in conjunction with computational methods to study the neurodevelopment of social and affective phenomena during the second and third decades of life, mostly in the context of decision-making and emotion regulation. Ongoing work in his lab explores the impact of emotion regulation on adolescent risk-taking behavior, how mental representations of specific known others influence social decision behavior, and how emotion regulation skills are successfully acquired and deployed to affect well-being.

Program Committee Members

Candace M. Raio, (2026 Co-Chair), New York University
Chujun Lin, University of California, San Diego
Josiah Leong, University of Arkansas
Justin Minue Kim, (2026 Co-Chair) Sungkyunkwan University

Awards

Please visit our Awards page to learn about the different SANS conference awards you can apply for, as a member

Membership

Join SANS to enjoy reduced conference rates and the opportunity to apply for conference awards.