JSM 2015: Call for Abstracts, Chairs

Annie Qu, 2015 JSM Program Chair

The 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) will be held in Seattle, Washington. This is the largest annual statistics conference held in North America each year. The theme for JSM 2015 is “Statistics: Making Better Decisions,” which focuses on making an impact on decisionmakers in government, organizations, industry, business, and large societies through better decisionmaking and well-informed policies using data-driven statistical methods and computing tools.

The JSM 2015 Program Committee has put together 183 invited sessions. The topics are interesting and diverse, ranging from new machine learning methods and computing tools to personalized medicine, Big Data visualization and graphics, imaging data, health policies, and fun sports data. I hope you will enjoy the program and participate by presenting your work, attending talks, visiting poster sessions, and taking Continuing Education courses.

Speed Sessions 

The speed sessions were launched successfully at JSM 2013. A speed session consists of 20 oral presentations of four minutes each, with a 10-minute break after the first set of 10 talks. The short oral presentations are followed by an e-poster session on the same day. Due to positive feedback from the audience and participants, we hope to increase the number of speed sessions this year and reduce the number of parallel contributed talk sessions. For the speed sessions, electronic poster boards will be provided to speed presenters to eliminate the cost of printing posters.

When you submit your contributed abstract, simply select “Speed” as the sub-type.

Poster Sessions

Poster sessions are a great way to generate more attention for your topic due to the use of effective visual display tools. You will have a better chance of interacting with your audience without worrying about time constraints. 

Topic-Contributed Sessions

A topic-contributed session is organized around a common theme. The session typically consists of five speakers, either five papers or four papers with one discussant. Topic-contributed sessions have several advantages over contributed sessions: 

• The talks are focused on one theme and more cohesive
• Each speaker has 20 minutes of presentation time, instead of 15 minutes
• Session slots are limited, so high-quality papers are chosen

Topic-contributed sessions require organizers to select a theme, invite five speakers, and ensure speakers’ commitments prior to the submission deadline of January 15, 2015.

Contributed Sessions 

Nearly half of JSM sessions are contributed sessions. Contributed sessions do not involve as much up-front planning. To present a contributed paper, you need to submit a title and abstract, along with the choice of the ASA section or JSM partner society most closely associated with the topic of your paper.

These sessions consist of seven papers with 15 minutes of presentation time for each.

Abstract Submission 

The online abstract submission system will close February 2, 2015. This deadline is firm, so please submit your abstract ahead of time. The system will be reopened for abstract editing from March 31 to April 16, 2015. To ensure a well-organized program, speakers must register for JSM when they submit their abstracts. 

Session Chairs 

All JSM sessions require a chair to ensure speakers are well informed about the session in advance, introduce speakers, and manage time for each speaker. Chairing a session is a great way to get involved with JSM. I especially encourage people who are new to the profession and JSM to consider chairing sessions by contacting the program committee members. 

Finally, the success of JSM relies on your input and effort to help assemble a strong and exciting program. I look forward to your feedback at anniequ@illinois.edu.