The New Researchers Group (NRG) exists under the auspices of the Institute for Mathematical Statistics (IMS). It was founded following the 2014 New Researchers Conference, hosted by Harvard University. Many of the attendees at the conference were eager to continue the exciting conversations they had there and to foster collaborations and career development for young statisticians.
Currently, the NRG Committee focuses on ensuring the continuance of the New Researchers Conference, establishing and enhancing a robust web presence, and fostering new ways for young researchers to meet, collaborate, and share their experiences.
NRG is open to any IMS member but is tailored to members within 10 years of completion of their doctorate degree.
The current NRG President is Armeen Taeb (University of Washington). The NRG Leadership Committee members are: Satarupa Bhattacharjee (University of Florida); Dan Kessler (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Eardi Lila (Treasurer, University of Washington); Pawel Morzywolek (University of Washington); and Xinwei Shen (ETH Zurich). The previous NRG President (for 2022–24) was Pragya Sur (Harvard University); and before that (2017–19) Alex Volfovsky (Duke University).
The stated aims of the Group are:
• To promote and provide a forum for early-career researchers;
• To encourage membership for early-
career researchers in the IMS;
• To organize conferences, workshops, and sessions in other meetings; and
• To provide social networking tools for early-career researchers in order to discuss research, exchange ideas with each other, and connect with the community at large.
To that end, among recent NRG-organized or hosted events are:
• A lunch mixer during the IMS ICSDS (International Conference on Statistics and Data Science), in December 2024 in Nice, France. The purpose of this event is to foster a sense of community among young researchers and help them build a professional network;
• The 24th Meeting of New Researchers in Statistics and Probability, a.k.a. the New Researchers Conference, held August 1–3, 2024, at Oregon State University;
• The Preparing to Teach workshop (officially “8th Preparing for Careers in Teaching Statistics and Data Science Workshop”), held on August 3, immediately before JSM, and organized by the ASA’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education.
Coming up in 2025
Forthcoming events in 2025 include:
• An invited session at JSM Nashville, titled “The interplay of statistics, optimization, and geometry for modern data science”. Speakers are junior researchers Ashwin Pananjady, Cong Ma, Kaizheng Wang, and Eliza O’Reilly.
• The 25th New Researchers Conference and 9th Preparing to Teach workshop, held at Vanderbilt University immediately before JSM 2025.
• We also plan to have an NRG invited session at ICSDS 2025.
• A conference, planned to be a European counterpart to the New Researchers Conference, co-located with ICSDS in December 2025.
• Online webinars tailored for new researchers in statistics, such as panels on job markets or on grant writing, etc.
• Regular mixers at various statistics conferences.
Stay tuned for more information on these events as plans evolve on our website, https://www.imsnrg.com.
The NRG has a new YouTube channel, at www.youtube.com/@imsnrg. You can watch a recording of the recent Virtual Panel on Navigating the Academic Job Market. The panelists were: Lihua Lei (Stanford), Shuangning Li (Chicago Booth), Anna Neufeld (Williams College), Kevin Lin (UW), Aaditya Ramdas (CMU), Genevera Allen (Columbia), and the moderator was Dan Kessler (UNC).
Other webinar recordings are at https://www.imsnrg.com/past-events.
Great, how do I join?
The IMS New Researchers Group is open to any IMS member (but is tailored to members within 10 years of completion of their doctoral degree). To join, login to your IMS account at https://members.imstat.org/Public. Once logged in, go to “Subscribe Now” and select “New Researchers Group.” You can also select it when you renew or join the IMS. This will add you to a group email list, with an opt-out option.