News archive - January 2021

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

SAS students take first place in ANSA case competition

Case competition winners

Contratulations to our fourth year actuarial science students who won first place in the 2021 ASNA Case competition!

Team Members:

  • Nianchen (Steven) Liu
  • Yifan (Eva) Li
  • Cheng (Robin) Wang
  • Chen Han (Owen) Lin

Background information: 

The formal name of the Convention is Actuarial Students’ National Association (ASNA). Every year hundreds of students across different Canadian Universities gather with the senior managers and directors of multiple well-known companies to learn about the future and the changes of the actuarial industry. Furthermore, it is a great opportunity for students to network with the employers to earn insights and potential offers. Hosted by the exact convention, the case competition (ASNA Case Competition) is an annual competition with its final round occurring during the days of the convention, with multiple professional actuaries being the judges. During the competition, we are asked to build essentially a brand new insurance product with some historic information of our clients and analyze how we should model and set its price.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Luke Hagar named GRADflix finalist!

GRADflix is an annual competition hosted by the University of Waterloo’s Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA) in which graduate students create one-minute videos to describe their research. These one-minute videos act as an “elevator pitch” for graduate students to explain a complex idea to a non-specialist audience.

Our very own Luke Hagar (MMath in Statistics) has been selected as a finalist in this competition. His video titled “Beyond p-values: Sample size determination using Bayesian statistics” will be shared live along with the videos of the other finalists during this year’s showcase. This is the first time that the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science has been represented in the GRADflix competition.

The GRADflix 2021 Showcase is taking place virtually on Friday, January 29, 2021 from 3 to 5 PM (EST). After the finalists’ videos are shown live, the winners will be announced, and attendees can vote on the People’s Choice prize winner. The event will be streamed live on the GSPA YouTube channel and attendees can register online.

Please attend to show your support of Luke!

Monday, January 18, 2021

Professor Mary Hardy, recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Actuaries

Mary Hardy

In 2020, Mary Hardy was recognized for her dedication and contributions to the Society of Actuaries (SOA) by being awarded their Distinguished Service Award.  Her award included the following annotations: 

“In recognition of her endless dedication to the advancement of the actuarial profession.”

“As a selfless individual, willing to work without recognition, she is a role model for all who have worked with her”

Society of actuaries

To learn more about about the award and past recipients, please visit the SOA website.

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Coding the future of finance

Chao Qian

Chao Qian is preparing for the trading environment of the future. More than 60 percent of stock volume is attributed to algorithmic trading, but older generations of traders have never learned to code. “In the future, I expect that everyone will need to be able to code and be comfortable with AI and machine learning,” he affirmed. “Thanks to the Masters of Quantitative Finance (MQF) program, I will be ready.”