JSM Late-Breaking Proposals Due April 16

Christian Léger, JSM 2018 Program Chair

Are you tired of winter? I invite you to think about summer. Vancouver. The 2018 Joint Statistical Meetings! The 181 invited sessions have been scheduled and, in the next few weeks, we will organize the contributed abstracts into sessions. When you consult the online program, I am sure you will find exciting sessions to attend from Sunday afternoon through Thursday morning and you will want to join us to “#LeadWithStatistics” at JSM 2018.

Preparing such a big program requires much advanced planning, so the invited session proposal deadline is in early September. Of course, much can happen in the ensuing 11 months, which is why there is a call for proposals for late-breaking sessions. A late-breaking session must cover one or more technical, scientific, or policy-related topics that have arisen during the one-year period prior to JSM.

A late-breaking session must cover one or more technical, scientific, or policy-related topics that have arisen during the one-year period prior to JSM.

To give you an idea of the type of sessions that have been selected in the recent past, here is a handful of late-breaking session titles:

• National Governments, Coerced Narratives, Creative Language, and Alternative Facts
• Hindsight Is 20/20 and for 2020: Lessons from 2016 Elections
• Invest in What Works: First Steps Toward Establishing Evidence-Based Policymaking Clearinghouse
• Data Journalism and Statistical Expertise: An Urgent Need for Writers, Bloggers, and Journalists to Be Statistically Savvy
• The VA Secretary Bans a Statistics Book
• Meeting the Challenges of a Pandemic: The Statistical Aspects of Dealing with Ebola
• Statistical Science and the President’s BRAIN Initiative
• Recent Concerns About Reproducibility and Replicability: The Statistical Aspects

Proposals for late-breaking sessions should be emailed to JSM 2018 program chair, Christian Léger, with a copy to the ASA meetings department by April 16. The competition is open to any member or organization of a partner society.

Proposals will be judged on statistical and scientific quality, timeliness, significance and impact, potential audience appeal, and completeness. Up to two late-breaking sessions will be selected from the proposals received by the deadline (subject to approval by the ASA Committee on Meetings). The proposal must include the following:

• Session description—including a title, summary of statistical and scientific content, and explanation of the subject’s timeliness and significance—and comments about the intended target audience
• Format of the session (e.g., a chair and four panelists, 2–3 speakers and a discussant, etc.)
• Names, affiliations, and contact information for the session organizer, chair, and all participants (speakers, panelists, discussants)
• A title for each presentation in the session
• Web links to relevant technical reports or news reports, if applicable

Organizers should make sure the participants agree to participate before the proposal is submitted. The JSM participation guidelines state that a speaker can give a main presentation and participate in a late-breaking session at the same meeting, so previous commitment to a regular session does not preclude participation.

We look forward to reading your proposals!