Full steam ahead to Union Station! That is, to the St. Louis Union Station Hotel for the 2021 Symposium on Data Science and Statistics (SDSS). We hope to hold the conference in person in St. Louis, Missouri, from June 2–5. The theme of the 2021 conference is Beyond Big Data: Shaping the Future. The program committee is already working hard to ensure SDSS 2021 is success.

Since its beginning in 2018, the community has known SDSS for being innovative. This year, we are excited to continue to innovate with another big change. For 2021, we will eliminate invited sessions and build a program only from contributed refereed presentations. The program will still include poster sessions, plenary addresses, and short courses. We will also continue the contributed refereed submission process that will allow us to create a program showcasing high-quality work from diverse fields.

Submissions for refereed presentations will be accepted from October 1 through November 23. E-poster submission will open February 1 and continue through March 10, 2021. In 2021, the e-posters will include the opportunity for lightning talks (or speed sessions). See the website for more information and sign up for the mailing list:

The SDSS program is organized into the following six tracks:

• Computational Statistics
• Machine Learning
• Data Visualization
• Practice and Applications
• Education
• Software & Data Science Technologies

The program committee is working with the editor of Stat, Helen Zhang, to continue the partnership between SDSS and the journal. The pilot project to co-edit selected papers from SDSS 2020 is underway. The papers are being reviewed following the usual Stat referee process, and selected SDSS 2020 papers will be published in a special issue coming soon. We plan to do the same with SDSS 2021. Stat is the journal of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) with the goal to rapidly disseminate peer-reviewed statistical research.

I am so excited that SDSS is going to take place in St. Louis. I visited there many years ago for another conference, and I took in several of the sights. One of them is the famous Gateway Arch, which is sometimes known as the “Gateway to the West.” I remember watching the film showing how it was built and being fascinated by the construction process. You can ride a little pod to the top, where you have an excellent view of the city and Mississippi River. I’m sure the ASA meetings staff will give us a list of things to do, but you might check out Bucket List Journey to get started planning your excursions.