Armeen Taeb (New Researchers Group [NRG] president), Panpan Zhang, Jinyuan Liu, and Eardi Lila (NRG treasurer) were the organizers of the recent IMS New Researchers Conference in Nashville, which took place immediately before the Joint Statistical Meetings. They report:

The 25th IMS Meeting of New Researchers in Statistics and Probability (known as the New Researchers Conference, or NRC) convened at Vanderbilt University from July 31–August 2, 2025: see https://nrc2025.github.io/. The conference was attended by 66 emerging researchers and 12 senior speakers and panelists.

The conference kicked off on Thursday, spotlighting a plenary talk by the Tweedie Award recipient, Bingxin Zhao, who spoke about high-dimensional statistical inference for linkage disequilibrium score regression. The day was further enriched by the first set of three-minute flash talks from junior attendees. For the first time in the recent history of NRC, we then had a panel session on teaching. This session was led by Jennifer Kaplan, Rebecca Nugent, Hongtu Zhu, Kate Calder, and Bingxin Zhao. The panelists emphasized the importance of extremely clear communication, clear rubrics, and clear systems from the outset to prevent complaints. The next panel was on publishing, led by Hani Doss, Kate Calder, Hongtu Zhu, Rebecca Betensky, and Rebecca Nugent. The publishing panel facilitated a dynamic dialogue with editors from top statistical journals. In the late afternoon on Thursday, the junior attendees partook in a lively poster session. On Thursday evening, participants enjoyed the gift of time, with many of them going to the downtown area for a relaxing evening together.

Friday began with a panel discussion on funding, featuring NSF Program Officer Yong Zeng and NIH Scientific Review Officer Kate Calder, along with Rebecca Betensky, Hani Doss, and Cindy Chen, who shared valuable experiences and lessons. The morning session also had a second round of three-minute flash talks from junior attendees. In the afternoon, IMS President Tony Cai delivered the plenary talk, highlighting the future of statistics and federated learning under constraints on communication and privacy; see Figure 3. This was followed by the promotion panel, led by Yu Shyr, Kate Calder, Jeff Morris, and Ryan Tibshirani, who offered unique perspectives on the promotion path for junior faculty. The day concluded with a mentoring panel led by Tony Cai, Hongtu Zhu, Jeff Morris, and Ryan Tibshirani, which fostered a dynamic dialogue and provided junior faculty with rich insights from the extensive experiences of senior scholars. Friday was concluded with a buffet dinner. Two of the organizers, Armeen and Eardi, hosted a lively trivia quiz at dinner involving three topics: the history of statistics, naming the concept based on poetry generated by ChatGPT, and exploratory analysis.

The last day of the conference began with a panel on collaboration, led by Bin Yu, Ryan Tibshirani, Yong Zeng, and Jeff Morris. These great panelists offered tips on cultivating successful collaborations. The final panel session was on the future of statistics, and was led by Bin Yu, Hongtu Zhu, Bingxin Zhao, Hani Doss, and Yon Zeng.

This year’s meeting was co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and Vanderbilt University.

For photos from the NRC – and from the NRG mixer at JSM, a few days after the New Researchers Conference, please download the PDF of the September 2025 IMS Bulletin.