Invited Session Proposals Sought for JSM 2022

Ming-Hui Chen, JSM 2022 Program Chair

JSM 2022 is heading back to Washington, DC, after last being there in 2009. The meeting will be held from August 6–11 and it is expected to be the first big in-person post-COVID-19 meeting for the statistical community. To begin planning for next year, the program committee is soliciting invited session proposals. ASA President-elect Kathy Ensor has set the theme for the 2022 meetings as “Statistics: A Foundation for Innovation.” This theme emphasizes the essential role of statistics in the era of big data and data science. Session proposals relating to the theme are especially welcome. The competition for invited session slots is expected to be intense. Preparing a strong and compelling proposal is the key for your proposal being selected. The proposal topic has to be fresh and attractive to a wide range of JSM attendees. Selecting diverse speakers with gender balance and a mix of seniority may also help. Most importantly, your proposal must be unique and extremely appealing to those members of the program committee representing your chosen sponsors.

Invited Paper and Panel Sessions

A standard invited session usually consists of 2–6 speakers and discussants who report and discuss the most interesting and significant findings in their research under a unified theme. An invited panel includes 3–6 panelists who collectively address an important topic of great current interest. JSM usually has many more standard invited sessions than panel sessions. Once you have chosen your participants, select up to three sponsors in ranked order. A sponsor can be an ASA section, an interest group, or an affiliated society (i.e., IMS, ENAR, WNAR, SSC, KISS, ICSA, IISA, ISBA, RSS, ISI, CAS, CWS). When you submit a proposal, you will need to provide a title, general description of the session, and a list of speakers with their affiliations and the tentative titles of their talks, which can be revised later. Abstracts are not required, as these will be submitted by the speakers at a later date. Again, the more detail you provide, the more competitive your proposal will be. Due to the limited number of sessions and increasing attendance, many strong invited session proposals will not be selected. If your proposal is not selected, you may consider revising it for a topic-contributed session.

Memorial Sessions

There are five open slots for memorial sessions at JSM 2022. One strategy to maximize your chance of obtaining an invited memorial session is to first submit your proposal as a regular invited session. You may pick “memorial session” as the sponsor. But also pick sections as sponsors. If one of the sections picks up your proposal as one of its guaranteed sessions, then you are done. If not, your proposal might still be selected in the open competition for invited sessions. If that fails, your proposal will automatically compete for one of the five designated invited memorial session slots. Unless the session is selected by an organization or ASA section in September, decisions about memorial sessions will be made in the fall.

Invited Poster Sessions

An invited poster session consisting of up to 40 electronic posters will take place during the Opening Mixer on the Sunday of JSM 2022. Send your idea (or the poster itself) to JSM 2022 Poster Chair Gyuhyeong Goh of Kansas State University.

Introductory Overview Lectures

Introductory Overview Lecture (IOL) topics are selected because of their potential to enrich the future directions of statistical theory and practice through broader dissemination. For 2022, we want to have four IOLs. These proposals should address timely and important statistical topics of interest to a wide range of JSM attendees. Note that IOL speakers can also present an invited or contributed paper, panel, or poster. Email JSM 2022 Program Chair Ming-Hui Chen with suggestions for topics and speakers.