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JSM FAQs
What is JSM?
JSM (the Joint Statistical Meetings) is the world's largest annual gathering of statisticians. It is held jointly with the American Statistical Association, the International Biometric Society (ENAR and WNAR), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Statistical Society of Canada, the International Chinese Statistical Association, and the International Indian Statistical Association.
Attended by more than 5000 people, JSM activities include oral presentations, panel sessions, poster presentations, continuing education courses, exhibit hall (with state-of-the-art statistical products and opportunities), career placement service, society and section business meetings, committee meetings, social activities, and networking opportunities.
When and where is 2012 JSM being held?
San Diego, California, is the host for the 2012 JSM. The conference will take place Saturday, July 28, through Thursday, August 2, at the San Diego Convention Center, 111 West Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA 92101.
Who attends the JSM?
JSM attracts statisticians from academia, government, industry, from the US and around the globe.
When did JSM begin?
The Joint Statistical Meetings were formally organized in 1974, and ASA began holding its annual meeting with this group at that time.
How did ASA come to have its annual meeting with the JSM?
The best answer is to provide the following brief history of the ASA annual meeting:
A brief history of the ASA annual meetings follows:
The inaugural annual meeting of the newly formed American Statistical Society (as it was briefly called at its establishment in 1839) was held in Boston Feb. 5, 1840. Attendance at the meeting was 10. No presentations had been made at the first annual meeting in February, but one was made at a meeting held in April 1840. Meetings continued to be held in Boston through the early 1900s.
Scheduling meetings outside Boston and in conjunction with other societies was part of an attempt to make the association more national. The 71st annual meeting in 1909 in New York was held in conjunction with nine other associations and featured four presentations over several days.
For two decades afterward, the ASA annual meeting, with one exception, was held annually in December for 2-4 days. The 90th meeting in 1928 had 17 sessions with multiple competing time slots each day. From 1929 through 1948, ASA held 18 meetings. By 1937, there were 38 presentations.
In 1935, ASA combined with several associations, with which it often met, to form the Allied Social Sciences Association. This association's first sponsored meeting, called the Allied Meetings, was held in 1936 in Chicago, and the ASA held its annual meeting with this group once every three years until 1974. With the formation of the IMS in 1935 and the International Biometrics Society in 1948, meetings with only statistical societies, called "Joint Meetings," were initiated, and the ASA held its annual meetings with these groups in the years it did not meet with the Allied group. Since 1974, when the Joint Statistical Meetings were formally organized, the ASA has continually held its annual meeting with this group.
What are Late-Breaking Sessions?
Late-breaking sessions were introduced during 2002 to enable the inclusion in the program of important, newly emerging topics. Due to the size and complexity of JSM, sessions typically are planned about one year in advance. This helps the JSM run more smoothly, but does not address some issues in the timeliest fashion. A late-breaking session covers one or more technical, scientific, or policy-related topics that have arisen in the one-year period prior to the JSM in which the session is intended to appear.