The IMS funds travel awards for early-career researchers, and some of this year’s recipients have written about their experiences. Read about the Hannan Graduate Student Travel Award and IMS New Researcher Travel Award at https://www.imstat.org/ims-awards/.

Ting Ye, University of Wisconsin–Madison, attended ENAR 2019 using a Hannan Travel Award. Ting said, “I presented my work and enjoyed many great talks. It was a wonderful and eye-opening experience. I would definitely encourage others to apply for future awards.”

New Researcher Justin Strait, University of Georgia, said, “I went to O’Bayes 2019, which took place at the University of Warwick in the UK. The talks were incredibly varied and of high-quality, and left me with some interesting ideas to think about trying out within my own research. I would certainly encourage other new faculty to apply for the IMS Travel Award!”

Quan Zhou, Rice University, traveled to the WNAR/IMS/JR meeting [see report here]. Quan said, “I feel so honored to be a recipient of the New Researcher Travel Award. I used the award to present one of my recent works, “Sequential Re-randomization,” at the meeting. The support from IMS means a great deal to my career and I strongly encourage other junior researchers to apply in the future.”

Bo Ning, Yale University, said, “Thanks to my IMS New Researcher Award, I was able to afford my trip to attend Aad van der Vaart’s 60th Birthday statistical conference in The Netherlands. It was an unforgettable experience. I learned about the frontiers of modern statistical research from talks given by famous statisticians. I met professors in person whom I had admired for a long time. I also attended a special event, where Aad van der Vaart received the royal award, Knight in the Order of the Lion of The Netherlands.’’

Mikołaj Kasprzak, University of Luxembourg, used his New Researcher Travel Award to participate in the Stochastic Processes and Their Applications conference in Evanston [see report here]. “Apart from presenting my own work, I had an opportunity to listen to some extremely interesting and inspiring lectures delivered by top probabilists from all around the world,” he said. “I would encourage everyone to apply for future awards offered by the IMS and participate in the events organized or co-organized by the Institute.”

Yuanyuan Zhang, University of Manchester, said, “I was very privileged to receive the IMS New Researcher Travel Award, which provided me with the opportunity to present at the 2019 IMS China Meeting. Participating in the conference provided me with a great chance to network with top leading experts in my research area. In addition, it enhanced and widened my ability and knowledge in the area that I am passionate about. I would definitely encourage other researchers to apply for other IMS Travel awards.”

You can see a photo of the eight travel award recipients who were able to come to JSM here.