JSM 2015: Final Report

The Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in Seattle, Washington, broke records this year with a total of 6,851 people in attendance. The theme for 2015 was “Statistics: Making Better Decisions,” and sessions focused on affecting decision-makers in government, industry, and academia. The conference attracted people from all areas of the statistics community and was, as always, a great place to present work, learn and exchange new ideas, and make new friends.

The exhibit hall was a hit and probably the liveliest place in the convention center, with poster sessions, corporate booths, book publishers, and free drinks (at Spotlight Seattle).

The JSM 2015 program committee oversaw a program of 702 sessions. This year’s introductory overview lectures were popular as they provided new and exciting topics to stimulate beginners, including personalized medicine, new perspectives in spatial and spatio-temporal data analysis, statistical issues in computational neuroscience, and recent advances in machine learning and data mining.

There also were two well-received late-breaking sessions: The VA Secretary Bans a Statistics Book and Meeting the Challenges of a Pandemic: The Statistical Aspects of Dealing with Ebola.

The technical sessions were particularly strong, sparking many positive comments about the quality of the program. Session topics ranged from new machine learning methods and computing tools to personalized medicine and genetics to Big Data visualization and graphics, image, and text data to electronic health records data, health policies, and environmental statistics.

Named lectures such as the Wald Lecture by Susan Murphy, the Fisher Lecture by Stephen Fienberg, the Le Cam Lecture by Jon Wellner, the Deming Lecture by William Meeker, and the five medallion lectures were packed. In addition, the President’s Invited Address by Christine Fox highlighted the theme of the conference: how statistics can play an important role in making better decisions—in this case, during wartime. Fox became famous for pointing out problems in training bombing pilots through analyzing data at Naval Air Station Miramar, from where the heroine in “Top Gun” was inspired.

Speed sessions made it back to JSM for their third year, as they continue to gain popularity. Each speaker gave a five-minute talk, and then presented his/her electronic poster in the exhibit hall later in the day. I encourage presenters to consider speed sessions in the future.

For each year’s memorial sessions, we pay tribute to members of our profession who have passed away. This year’s memorial sessions commemorated Leo Breiman, Marvin Zelen, Susie Bayarri, and Dennis Lindley, honoring their scientific work, providing personal memoirs, and connecting people who were close to them. (On a side note, I tried to go to Leo Breiman’s memorial session, but the room was so full I could not get in.)

I had a great time as this year’s JSM program chair. I got to know many people in our society, especially the young people who bring new blood and energy to our profession.

Special Thanks

I am grateful to the ASA meetings staff, especially Naomi Friedman and Kathleen Wert. We have exchanged many emails throughout the past two years, and I will miss that!

I am thankful to the ASA staff members who developed the JSM 2015 app, which was probably the most-used app during the conference. I also thank Xuming He and members of the Committee on Meetings for selecting me as program chair and providing many useful tips from previous JSM experiences.

My deepest thanks are to each of you who contributed to JSM 2015 by presenting, organizing, planning, chairing, and participating in sessions. Without you, we would not have such high-quality and exciting programs or such a wonderful showcase for the year in statistics!