Debashis Ghosh, JSM 2024 Program Chair

Debashis Ghosh

Next year’s JSM will be held in Portland, Oregon, from August 3–8. Portland is known for its beauty, location, cuisine, microbreweries, and coffee. It’s also the home of the popular TV series Portlandia.

The theme for the 2024 meetings­—chosen by ASA President-elect Bonnie Ghosh-Dastidar—is “Statistics and Data Science: Informing Policy and Countering Misinformation,” which speaks to the rise in the generation, analysis, and use of data in all segments of society for decision-making purposes. Examples include but are not limited to the following:

• Government
• Health Care
• Education
• Finance
• Sports
• Entertainment
• Marketing

However, a rising threat to society has been the spread of misinformation, and our field has an important role to play in combatting this phenomenon. Session proposals relating to this theme are welcome.

Invited Paper and Panel Sessions

The sessions can be oral presentations or panel discussions. An invited paper (oral) session usually consists of two to six speakers and discussants who report and discuss the most interesting and significant findings in their research under a unified theme. For an invited panel, a typical session consists of three to six people who provide commentary, discussion, and engaging debate on a particular topic of contemporary interest. The ideal session involves fresh, important work many JSM attendees will find interesting. Many of the most stimulating sessions present diverse viewpoints and strategies on a common topic, with speakers coming from different institutions and taking different approaches toward similar problems.

To organize a session, you should first set a theme of broad interest and identify and contact potential participants. Ideally, you can make the case as to why it is relevant to the JSM meeting theme, but this is not required. Then you should write a proposal consisting of a brief abstract/rationale, a list of participants, and tentative titles for the talks (titles can be changed later).

When planning an invited session, note that JSM has strict guidelines for participation, including the “one speaker, one talk” rule, which states an individual can only be part of one session proposal. Talk to potential speakers to ensure they are not committing to multiple invited proposals.

Once written, you need to submit the session proposal by September 7 via the online system, indicating type of session and proposed sponsor. I encourage you to contact a member of the program committee before submitting to see if they are willing to sponsor the session. If you are a member of an ASA section or another sponsoring society, going through the corresponding representative is often a good way to proceed. They may accept the session outright for one of their allocated spots, or they may enter it into a general competition in which selection is decided by a consensus vote of the entire program committee. In either case, only sessions submitted via the online system will be considered.

Decisions about the invited program will be made by mid-October. Contact program committee members well ahead of the September 7 deadline. If you do not know who to contact, reach out to me, Debashis Ghosh, or associate chairs Esra Kurum and Ronglai Shen.

Memorial Sessions

There are five open slots for memorial sessions at JSM 2024. 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 October, decisions about memorial sessions will be made later 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 2024. Send your idea (or the poster itself) to JSM 2024 Poster Chair Ryan Peterson.

Introductory Overview Lectures

Introductory Overview Lecture (IOL) topics are selected because of their potential to enrich the future direction of statistical theory and practice through broader dissemination. For 2024, we aim 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 are an exception to the “one speaker, one session” rule, as they can also present an invited or contributed paper, panel, or poster. Email me with suggestions for topics and speakers.