Society for Thermal Medicine

Accommodation and the Cherry Blossom Centennial

STM 2027 takes place during the National Cherry Blossom Festival's 100th-anniversary celebration, running March 20-April 11, 2027. The National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade is scheduled for Saturday, April 10, the day after our meeting. Consider extending your stay to enjoy the festival and Washington's spring attractions. Peak bloom depends on the weather and cannot be guaranteed for meeting dates.

Spring is a busy visitor season in Washington, we strongly recommend booking your accommodation early to ensure the best availability and rates. Penn Quarter, Chinatown and the Metro Center area are especially convenient to the venue; hotels near a Metrorail station can also be practical. Many booking platforms offer flexible “Pay later” and free cancellation options, often until shortly before your stay, allowing you to secure accommodations early while retaining flexibility if your plans change. Search for nearby accommodations on Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, or KAYAK.

Venue and Washington DC highlights

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library | 901 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

STM 2027 will meet in Washington's landmark central library, a beautifully modernized building in the heart of downtown. Its auditorium, conference center and flexible event spaces provide a distinctive setting for the meeting. A particular highlight is the fifth-floor event space, which opens directly onto a spacious rooftop terrace with stunning views across downtown DC, an inviting place for informal conversations and networking between scientific sessions. The library is steps from Gallery Place,Chinatown Metro and within walking distance of Metro Center, restaurants, hotels and cultural attractions. Explore the library | Event spaces and rooftop

Make the most of your visit to the nation's capital. The National Mall brings together the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and other historic memorials. Smithsonian museums and the National Gallery of Art offer world-class collections with free general admission. Closer to the venue, Penn Quarter features restaurants, theaters and the National Portrait Gallery. The U.S. Capitol, White House and Georgetown are also easy additions to a longer stay. Explore Washington, DC.

Keynotes and Program Highlights

Our keynote lectures bridge clinical implementation and the science of thermal safety and efficacy. A dedicated reimbursement symposium and ASME standards workshop extend these discussions to the policy and technical foundations of clinical adoption.

Devashish Shrivastava, PhD

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Devices and Radiological Health

From Temperature to Tissue Effect: Quantifying Safety and Efficacy in Thermal Medicine

 

Dr. Devashish Shrivastava is a bioheat-transfer engineer at the U.S. FDA whose research focuses on evaluating tissue heating and thermal effects associated with medical devices. His expertise includes physics-based computational models of in vivo temperature, thermal injury, radiofrequency heating and safety in magnetic resonance imaging. He has contributed to MRI safety standardization, previously chaired the ISMRM MR Safety Study Group, and edited the reference work Theory and Applications of Heat Transfer in Humans. His keynote will examine how temperature and thermal models can be connected to meaningful tissue effects when assessing medical-device safety and efficacy. Speaker profile | Related FDA guidance

Emanuel Stutz, MD

Head of Hyperthermia, Department of Radiation Oncology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, Switzerland

From Clinical Evidence to Reimbursement: How Hyperthermia Achieved Insurance Coverage in Switzerland

Dr. Emanuel Stutz is a radiation oncologist and head of the Hyperthermia Unit at Inselspital, Bern University Hospital. He helped establish the hospital's clinical program in superficial and deep regional hyperthermia, particularly in combination with radiotherapy. His clinical and research interests include sarcomas, challenging tumors, treatment outcomes and predictors of response. He is involved in Swiss multicenter research evaluating hyperthermia as part of neoadjuvant treatment for high-risk soft-tissue sarcoma. His keynote will discuss the path from clinical evidence to insurance reimbursement in Switzerland and lessons for the wider adoption of hyperthermia. Hospital profile | Multicenter study

Reimbursement Symposium

From Evidence to Coverage and Codes: A Roadmap for Thermal Therapy

Friday, April 9 | 3:15–5:15pm | Auditorium

This two-hour symposium will explore how clinical evidence translates into insurance coverage, appropriate coding and payment for thermal therapies. Discussion will consider the roles of clinicians, payers, policy experts and hospital billing teams, with an emphasis on practical barriers and opportunities for broader patient access.

ASME Thermal Medicine Standards Workshop

Wednesday, April 7 | 9:30am–12:30pm | Room 401A

Hosted by the ASME Thermal Medicine Standards Committee, this workshop will discuss ongoing standardization priorities for safe and reproducible thermal medicine. Potential topics include terminology, tissue properties, temperature measurement and technical foundations for treatment quality and device evaluation.

Program details and times are tentative. Keynote times will be announced with the final program.