Notes from My First JSM 

By Adeeba Tak 

My first Joint Statistical Meetings began months before I landed in Boston, Massachusetts. I was working at a library in March when I realized that if I really wanted to go to the conference in August, I would need a plan to get there. From there on, every time I saw anything JSM 2026 related, I read about it and added it to a running list of opportunities I was eligible for. The ASA Student and Early Career Travel Fund landed on that list. I applied in April. Suddenly a trip that would not have been possible otherwise felt like something within reach. 

The award, a long bus ride, and an Airbnb split with friends I had made at ENAR earlier in the year brought me from Brooklyn to Boston. JSM can be overwhelming for a first timer, so I had a simple rule: not everything, but at least one to two meaningful things a day. On top of attending sessions and mixers, I was to judge a poster session, volunteer at two EXPO booths, and meet a mentor I had been matched with through an ASA section’s mentoring program. The applications were free and did not take long at all, but you had to plan.  

Connecting with new people at the conference came easily. Connecting with people I already knew took reaching out before the conference. The ask was one sentence: Did they have time to meet during JSM? For most, I got time on the books in advance and sneaked in a coffee or a walk. By July, I had a schedule for JSM with something meaningful to do every day I was there. 

I arrived in Boston on a beautiful August evening. An old little train took me to the Airbnb in Somerville where I was met by two dogs, my roommates for the next three days. Sunday night was the opening reception. At the EXPO, I ran into people I knew and met new ones. Despite a long travel day, I went back to my Airbnb energized from the conversations. At the dance party, I spotted people I had met over the three days. The breakdancing, the dance-off, a room of statisticians sliding to the left in sync—it turns out statisticians can dance really well. 

Every night I went through my notes—who I had met, what I had promised, what I had to send. I found people on LinkedIn, and where someone had shared an email, I wrote down what I wanted to talk to them about. People had given me their time, and following through was how I respected it. 

My first JSM taught me to advocate for myself. Ask your school, ask your work. Fill out the forms. Write to your mentors and friends before you go. We have more in common than statistics, and it takes one good conversation to find that out.

Adeeba Tak

Adeeba Tak is a biostatistician in the Summer Han Lab at Stanford University’s Quantitative Sciences Unit, where she studies cancer risk screening and surveillance. She is driven by real-world evidence that makes patient care timelier and more precise. She holds an MS in applied statistics from New York University and a BA in physics from the University of Pennsylvania.  
 
Outside her research, Tak is passionate about professional development through community and mentorship, especially for first-generation graduates. She serves on ENAR’s Council for Emerging and New Statisticians and on the Caucus for Women in Statistics and Data Science Development Committee. She attended JSM 2026 as a recipient of the ASA Student and Early Career Travel Fund.  
 
Tak grew up in Kashmir, a valley in the Himalayas, and loves to read and run.