2025 Student Paper Competition
Sponsored by the ASA Consortium of Sections (GSS/SRMS/SSS)
The Social Statistics Section (SSS), Government Statistics Section (GSS), and Survey Research Methods Section (SRMS) of ASA are pleased to announce a competition for student and post-graduate papers. Competition winners will present their papers at a topic-contributed session during the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM), August 2 through August 7, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. Competition winners will also be highlighted during the 2025 SRMS, GSS, and SSS business meetings at JSM. A subsidy of up to $1,000 is provided to each winner to cover JSM 2025 expenses, and five awards will be granted. We ask faculty members as well as supervisors and mentors of recently-hired graduates to encourage students and mentees to apply for these awards.
Applications are due at 11:59 p.m. EST, November 15, 2024, and winners are notified by January 15, 2025.
Eligibility
To be eligible to participate, you must be a current undergraduate or graduate student at any level, or a recent 2024 graduate who wishes to present research that was conducted as a student. Previous student paper competition winners will not be eligible for this award.
Papers entered in this competition must involve either a new statistical methodology or a creative application of statistical analyses to a problem, issue, or policy question pertinent to the subject areas of one of the sponsoring sections. The research does not have to be complete, but competitors must be able to submit an abstract prospectus that describes the planned research and nature of the intended innovation(s).
More than twelve sections of ASA sponsor Student Paper Competition / Travel Awards to assist students with travel expenses to attend JSM. Students may submit papers to no more than two competitions and may accept only one section’s award. Students must inform all sections applied to when s/he wins and accepts an award, thereby removing the student from the award competition for the other section.
Application Process
Applications must include:
- A cover letter with the applicant’s name, current affiliation and status, and contact information (address, telephone, email);
- An abstract (300 words maximum);
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A draft paper no longer than 25 pages (inclusive of all figures, tables, and bibliography), entirely double-spaced (abstract, main body, references, footnotes, and appendices), and using at least 12-point type throughout with at least 1-inch margins on all sides;
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A letter from their adviser that certifies the applicant’s status (e.g., current student or new graduate who completed the degree within the past year), and describes plans to complete the research.
To apply, please email the package containing the first three items above (the adviser letter should be sent separately by the adviser) to all the 2025 section officers listed below:
• Xiaojing Wang (SSS Program Chair-Elect, xiaojing.wang@uconn.edu)
• Kristen Olson (SRMS Program Chair-Elect, kolson5@unl.edu)
• Pushpal Mukhopadhyay (GSS Program Chair-Elect, pushpalm@gmail.com)
Deadlines
Please note the tight turnaround times in November 2024 - January 2025 for notifications and submissions, and plan to be available and responsive:
1. Applicants email the application package to the three program chairs-elect by 11:59 p.m. EST on November 15, 2024.
2. Competition winners are notified by January 15, 2025.
3. Competition winners must confirm their acceptance of the award, and immediately inform other sections that they applied to by January 20, 2025. Failure to confirm the award may lead to removal from the list of winners.
4. Competition winners submit their winning paper abstract through the regular JSM abstract submission process by February 1, 2025. (Winners will be provided with the ID number of the topic-contributed session at which they will deliver their presentations.)
5. Competition winners come to the JSM in Nashville, Tennessee in August 2025 to present their winning papers!
2025 Award Recipients
Five winning papers will be presented at JSM 2025. The 2025 award recipients were:
- Huiding Chen, Vanderbilt University
- Yuting Chen, University of Maryland
- Zhenhua Wang, University of Missouri
- Zhuochao Huang, University of Florida
- Seth Adarkwah Yiadom, Ohio State University
Two honorable mentions were also awarded in 2025:
- Snigdha Das, Texas A&M University
- Daniel Vedensky, University of Missouri
Award recipient information can be found on the SRMS website.