PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The Vision Sciences Society is a nonprofit membership organization of nearly 2000 scientists interested in the functional aspects of vision. VSS was founded in 2001 with the purpose of bringing together scientists from a broad range of disciplines including visual psychophysics, visual neuroscience, computational vision and visual cognition. The scientific content of the meetings reflects the breadth of topics and interconnected ideas and approaches in modern vision science, from visual coding to perception, recognition and the visual control of action, as well as recent developments in cognitive psychology, computer vision and neuroimaging. Since its founding, VSS has provided a forum and framework for communicating advances in vision science, and VSS has become a flagship conference for the field. The interdisciplinary nature of VSS is reflected in the deliberately diverse membership of the Board of Directors and Abstract Review Committee. Many of the faculty from institutions in the United States who attend VSS are principal investigators of National Eye Institute grants; hence, the research objectives of the programs of the National Institutes of Health and of the National Eye Institute are well-represented in the program planning and individual presentations. Over 60% of participants are predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees. Of these 55% are US citizens. VSS provides multiple career development opportunities: (1) the platform and poster presentations provide a forum for trainees to showcase their work and receive feedback, (2) career-development workshops cover topics such as “Getting that Faculty Job”, “Reviewing and Responding to Reviews”, “The Public Face of your Science”, “Careers in Industry and Government”, “Faculty Careers at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions”, and include panel discussions with journal editors, NIH and NSF grant officers, and academic and industry representatives, (3) a “Meet the Professors” event in which trainees meet in small groups with members of the VSS Board and other professors for free-wheeling, open-ended discussions, and (4) a partnership with ARVO to host a symposium series that exposes VSS attendees to advances in clinical research from ARVO members and ARVO attendees to advances in basic research from VSS members. VSS also provides many formal events and informal opportunities for networking with peers and senior colleagues in a comfortable and engaging setting. The large contingent of early-stage investigators at VSS is a sign of the strong health of the field and the opportunity VSS provides for advancing the field. Our goal is to facilitate access and participation for this next generation of vision scientists. VSS previously received a one-year R13 award to support the 2019 meeting by providing travel awards for postdoctoral trainees and early-career faculty. Based on the success and positive impact of this initial support, the purpose of this 5-year proposal is to provide 48 travel awards per year for early-career investigators to attend the 2020-2024 meetings, with the focus on attracting and supporting a diverse pool of undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral trainees, and pre-tenure faculty who demonstrate potential for future success as vision researchers and whose research findings will be presented at the meeting. Funds are also requested to offset the registration costs for undergraduate attendees in order to significantly expand access and participation at the conference for students first encountering the field of vision science.

PROJECT NARRATIVE The Vision Science Society (VSS) organizes an annual meeting for presenting cutting edge research on the mechanisms and principles of normal and abnormal visual perception. The aging American population will experience an increasing rate of visual loss due to diseases and disorders of the eye and central visual pathway. Understanding the perceptual sequalae of and developing effective therapies for visual disorders requires knowledge in the diverse research domains sponsored by the annual meeting of VSS.