JSM Best Student Paper Award

The Business and Economic Statistics Section (B&E) of the American Statistical Association (ASA) will offer up to four student paper awards for B&E student members in doctoral programs in business, economics, econometrics, statistics, or allied disciplines. The section encourages submissions on novel methods, theories, and applications from all areas of business and economic statistics. Support is offered for students to participate in the 2026 Joint Statistical Meetings, to be held in Boston, MA, August 1-6, 2026.

Student paper award applications must include this form (JSM 2026 B&E Best Student Paper Awards) and the additional materials listed below. The ASA has some further requirements on applications for student awards to any ASA section – please read these at:

http://www.amstat.org/asa/education/Student-Paper-Competition-Travel-Award-to-Attend-the-Joint-Statistical-Meetings.aspx

Note:  Students may submit papers to a maximum of two sections, but they can only accept an award from one section. If a student wins and accepts an award, they must inform both sections they applied to, which will disqualify them from the award competition for the second section.

To ensure full consideration, applications should be submitted electronically by November 15 via e-mail to:
Emma Jingfei Zhang & Xianyang Zhang, Co-chairs, B&E student paper award committee: emma.zhang@emory.edu, zhangxiany@stat.tamu.edu

Applications must include the application form (PDF) and additional materials, attached to the application file, including:

1. Paper: student must be the lead author, and papers that have been accepted for publication are not eligible (limit 35 total pages, double-spaced).
2. The student must be an ASA B&E section member to apply. Information on joining can be found at: https://community.amstat.org/businessandeconomicstatisticssection/join.
3.  Letter of support from faculty advisor, including the student’s overall contribution to the submitted paper, confirmation of the student’s eligibility (applicant is a student, or applicant completed work as a student during 2025), and the paper’s publication status (limit 1 page). The student status does not apply to post-docs.
4. Copy of the most recent transcript (or equivalent report) from the student’s university.

Link to MS Word version of application form
Link to the PDF version of the application form

Please combine all documents into a single file.

Awards are contingent upon the applicant presenting their paper at JSM. Note: this application is for a student paper award only; you must apply separately to participate in the Joint Statistical Meetings as a presenter, in addition to registering for the conference:

• http://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2026/beontheprogram.cfm (Be on the Program)
• http://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2026/registration.cfm (Registration)

These links may not be active until JSM 2026 starts accepting registrations.

The Business and Economic Statistics Section is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Student Paper Awards. This year's award recipients are:

• • Young Hyun Cho, Purdue University, “Privacy-preserving dynamic assortment selection”
  • Alex Hayes, University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Peer effects in the linear-in-means model may be inestimable even when identified”
  • Yang Xu, North Carolina State University, “Linear contextual bandits with interference”
  • Maoyu Zhang, Renmin University, Emory University, “Preferential latent space models for networks with textual edges”

The award-winning students will present their papers at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in a Topic-Contributed session. They will also receive a cash award. 

For more details, including a complete list of the members of the 2025 B&E Student Paper Awards Committee, access the student awards announcement (PDF file).

Congratulations to the award winners for their submissions.

If you have any questions about the application requirements, please contact the B&E paper award committee co-chairs, Emma Jingfei Zhang & Xianyang Zhang at emma.zhang@emory.edu, zhangxiany@stat.tamu.edu.