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I'm a PhD Student in the US and am going to a conference for poster presentation soon.
I just realized that my poster will be right next to my former advisor's poster (To be precise, it's his student's poster).

To explain the history with the advisor, I worked with him for about a year. But he was emotionally abusive and unsupportive. I had panic attacks whenever I had a meeting with him. After a year in the program, I quitted and applied to another program again. In this second program, it has worked out really well and I'm very happy with my current advisor.

The separation with the former advisor seemed okay at first (He wasn't upset or angry about my decision at least when I talked about it. He sounded like he understands my decision). But then, after the conversation, he started ignoring me, which means that he wasn't okay at all.

The thing is that I'm now having a panic attack and become very anxious after realizing that my poster is right next to his. It seems unavoidable to run into him at the conference.

I'm really stressed out as this reminds me of all the traumatic events I had gone through. But at the same time, I want to use this opportunity to overcome this anxiety associated with him.

Can anyone give me advice on how I should react when I see him at the conference? How can I react in a professional way? Should I just ignore him? I can say hi to him, but I'm concerned that he will ignore me (This happened previously, and likely to happen again).

Any suggestions or advice will be appreciated!

Ignoring him and refusing to respond to any uncomfortable advances or comments might be best.

You don't owe him anything, especially the satisfaction of making you feel uncomfortable. Focus on your poster and on interacting with those who are interested in it. Do what you should do anyway and make some professional contacts at the session.

There is no need to do anything more than if the next position over was by someone unknown to you and whose work you aren't interested in.

You have just as much right to your space as anyone else. Dominate that space and try to let the rest go. With practice such uncomfortable encounters, that may occur from time to time with others, will become easier to manage.

And by "dominate that space" my intention is beyond the confines of a poster location.

There is an outside chance that the conference leadership would respond positively to a request to be moved. "I'd be more comfortable elsewhere" is all you need for an answer if asked why.

I'm really stressed out as this reminds me of all the traumatic events I had gone through. But at the same time, I want to use this opportunity to overcome this anxiety associated with him.

Are you having profesional help and are you sure you want and able to manage this without effecting your performance in the conference? Your desire to overcome is reasonable and probably is the right thing to do. However, overcoming emotional trauma or stress triggers might require gradual work and most likely professional help. I just worry you might end up worse than you are right now.

Can anyone give me advice on how I should react when I see him at the conference? How can I react in a professional way? Should I just ignore him? I can say hi to him, but I'm concerned that he will ignore me (This happened previously, and likely to happen again).

The answers you will recieve here most likely cover the professional aspects of this interaction. I guess anything in the range of "smile and wave" to "small talk and questions about poster" would be approperiate. But again, I really believe it is up to you and a medical professional to decide to which extend you are comfortable and emotionaly ready.

This doesn’t answer your explicit question, but have you considered sending an email to the conference organizers asking for your poster to be reassigned to a different part of the poster presentation area so that it’s not right next to the former adviser’s poster? This could go a long way towards minimizing the possibility of trouble, and will probably make it easier for you to handle the task you have set yourself of overcoming the anxiety you have related to meeting him at the conference, while leaving you some wiggle room to maneuver in case that turns out to be more difficult than you expected.

The email doesn’t have to go into details, just say this is a person you’ve had some conflict with in the past and you would prefer for your poster not to be close to theirs. If I were an organizer I’d be more than happy to accommodate such a request.

Good luck, I hope things go smoothly and that you’re able to focus on sharing your work with others and having fun.