Congratulations to Ruodu Wang from the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science for being the first recipient of the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Actuarial Science Early Career Award.
There have been few major international awards for researchers in actuarial science in recognition of their overarching scholarly achievements, as opposed to individual paper awards. To fill this gap, and to facilitate excellence and recognize leadership in actuarial research, the SOA has launched the Early Career Award this year (2021), which is expected to be awarded annually to one scholar within 10 years of independent academic career in actuarial science. For more details on the creation of this award, see the SOA Education and Research Section Publications.
The award selection committee is made up of internationally renowned scholars and thought leaders from the industry. In the spirit of academic freedom, the committee’s selection of recipients will be independent of SOA. This year, the first winner of the award is Ruodu Wang at the University of Waterloo, in recognition of his exceptional scientific achievements and contributions to risk measures, dependence modeling, risk sharing and their practical implications on insurance and banking regulation.
Ruodu Wang joined the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at Waterloo in 2012 and is currently Associate Professor, University Research Chair, and Sun Life Fellow. He is also one of the two inaugural winners of the Golden Jubilee Research Excellence Award from the Faculty of Mathematics in 2017. In addition to scientific advances in actuarial science, Wang has also made many contributions to statistics, quantitative finance, and operations research.
The SOA is a global professional organization for actuaries with more than 30,000 professional actuaries as active members. SOA offers professional designations for actuaries via a rigorous examination system, and it publishes the North American Actuarial Journal, one of the top academic journals in actuarial science.
To learn more about this award, visit the SOA award announcement.