Alexandra Schmidt, JSM 2025 Program Chair
As thousands get ready to attend JSM 2024, the American Statistical Association and its partners are starting to plan next year’s meetings, which will take place in Nashville, Tennessee, August 2–7.
Nashville is widely known as Music City and the birthplace of country music. It is a vibrant and culturally rich city with a lot to offer visitors. Highlights include the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Grand Ole Opry—the longest-running radio broadcast in US history featuring live performances by famous country music artists—and the Honky Tonk Highway. Located on Lower Broadway, this stretch of bars and clubs offers live music all day and night featuring both up-and-coming and established artists.
The theme chosen by ASA President-Elect Ji-Hyun Lee is “Statistics, Data Science, and AI Enriching Society.” Statistics, data science, and AI can collectively contribute to a smarter, more efficient, and equitable society. Their applications span various domains, improve quality of life, drive innovation, and create opportunities for growth and development. Emphasizing the responsible use and ethical considerations of these technologies will ensure they continue to enrich society in meaningful and sustainable ways.
With this theme in mind, JSM 2025 program committee members invite proposals for invited sessions.
Invited Paper and Panel Sessions
Invited 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 debate on a topic of contemporary interest.
The ideal session involves fresh, important work many JSM attendees will consider 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, decide on a topic of broad interest and contact potential participants. Ideally, the topic will be relevant to the JSM theme, but it is not required. Then, write a proposal consisting of a brief abstract/rationale, list of participants, and tentative titles for the talks.
JSM has strict guidelines for participation, including the “one speaker, one talk” rule, which states an individual can be part of just one talk or panel. Talk to potential speakers to ensure they are not committing to multiple presentations.
Once written, submit the session proposal by September 5, indicating the type of session and proposed sponsor. It is a good idea to contact a member of the program committee well before the submission deadline to see if they are willing to sponsor the session. Members of an ASA section or other sponsoring society should contact their corresponding representative first. The representative might 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 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.
Memorial Sessions
There are five open slots for memorial sessions at JSM 2025. A strategy for obtaining one of these slots is to first submit a proposal as a regular invited session and choose “memorial session” as the sponsor, but also pick sections as sponsors. If one of the sections doesn’t choose the proposal as one of its guaranteed sessions, the proposal might still be selected in the open competition for invited sessions. If that fails, the 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 2025. Send an idea (or the poster itself) to JSM 2025 Poster Chair Shirin Golchi.
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 2025, the committee aims 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 JSM 2025 Program Chair Alexandra Schmidt with suggestions for topics and speakers.
Leave a Reply