News

Pengyu Wei holds a PhD in Mathematics from Oxford University from 2018. He is joining us from a senior research associate position at the University of New South Wales Business School. His research interests include quantitative finance, risk management and actuarial science. Given his research expertise at the interface between mathematical finance and actuarial science, Pengyu will create stronger linkages between existing faculty members in these two important areas.

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science would like to congratulate Professor Richard J Cook for being awarded the five-year Faculty of Mathematics Research Chair position in recognition of his outstanding research contributions. The Faculty of Mathematics recognizes Richard's exceptional scholarly achievements and pre-eminence in the field of Statistics. Richard will receive a $250,000 research grant and a teaching reduction of one course per year.

On October 4, 2019, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and University of Waterloo appointed Professor Tony Wirjanto as the Curator in Insurance and Asset Management for the WEF.

On Friday October 18 and Saturday October 19, 2019 the first Waterloo Student Conference in Statistics, Actuarial Science, and Finance took place.  While this event was hosted by the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, it was the students who brought it to life.  This two-day conference was organized by students, for students.

The agenda for the conference featured keynote presentations by leading researchers, Xiao-Li Meng (Harvard University), Sebastian Jaimungal (University of Toronto), and Mary Thompson (University of Waterloo), as well as 40 research presentations by students from a variety of universities. 

The conference also included presentation awards for the two most outstanding talks in each field:

In the fields of Actuarial Science and Finance, the winners were:

• Xiyue Han (University of Waterloo) for the talk: On the Extrema of Functions in the Takagi Class
• Francois Micheal Boire (University of Western) for the talk: Distributional Response to Fiscal Stimulus

In the fields of Statistics and Biostatisics, the winners were:

• Christopher Salahub (University of Waterloo) for the talk: Seen to Be Done: A Graphical Investigation of Peremptory Challenge
• Gabriela Gonzalez Martinez (York University) for the talk: Bandwidth selection for the effective dose problem

To view information on other talks presented at the conference, including abstracts, please view the conference program.

Maclean’s wrote an article about how the University of Waterloo and funding from the Canadian government is helping Indonesia prepare for climate change. Through the Risk Management, Economic Sustainability and Actuarial Science in Indonesia (READI)project in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Waterloo is working to establish Indonesia as a regional centre of actuarial science.

Indonesia’s universities did not have a top-ranked actuarial science program, nor a cooperative program. With funding from Global Affairs, Manulife Indonesia, and Sun Life, the dedication of staff and faculty members from the University of Waterloo, and eager partners in Indonesia, nine out of 12 Indonesian universities are working with READI.

The success continues to grow. At the most recent co-op event, more than 80 companies showed up at one university. To learn more about the success of the program, see the full article in Maclean’s. 

Learn about the program from Angel Yang, a fourth year student majoring in Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo. In her interview with AdvisorSmith, Angel talks about why she chose to study at the University of Waterloo, her experience on campus, why a co-op program made sense to her, and much more. View the full interview online to see what she has to say.  

If you are interested in pursuing Actuarial Science, Waterloo should be at the top of your list. The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science (SAS) is considered a top tier academic unit in the field of Actuarial Science.  Our department has one of the world’s largest programs at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels. SAS offers professional masters programs as well as research-oriented masters and doctoral programs in actuarial science and finance. It is home to the bachelor of mathematics in actuarial science program which covers a wide range of courses, including full coverage of the material of the SOA/CAS associateship requirements and some coverage of the SOA/CAS fellowship requirements. With a sizeable actuarial faculty, the range of courses offered is broad and extends well beyond the SOA/CAS syllabi. Students may choose to gain foundational knowledge in life insurance, property and casualty insurance, pensions, risk theory, quantitative finance, and corporate finance. Students who are particularly interested in financial or predictive analytics topics may elect to add either option to their actuarial science honours plan. 

On Wednesday, September 18, 2019, the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science (SAS) celebrated the 50^th anniversary of Professor Mary Thompson as a faculty member in the department. Many current faculty and staff and a number of retired professors gathered in the SAS Lounge and celebrated Mary’s milestone with cake, coffee and fruits. The Vice-President, Research & International, of University of Waterloo, Professor Charmaine Dean, who was a PhD graduate from the department, sent a beautiful bouquet to congratulate Mary on this special occasion. A couple retired faculty members turned the clock back and told stories about Mary during the early days of the department. Mary thanked the department for being her academic home for the past 50 years, and told the younger generation of faculty members that SAS is a “can-do” place to fulfill their full potential and aspiration.  

Mary joined the department in 1969 as one of the first group of statistics faculty members, when the department was still in its infancy (established in 1967). Over the past half a century, Mary has become a fixture of the department, a highly accomplished scholar, and a great inspiration and role model for many students and young faculty members. She has provided dedicated services to the statistical community at all levels, including chair of the department, acting dean of the faculty, first scientific director of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute, and president of the Statistical Society of Canada.

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science would like to congratulate Phelim Boyle, along with two other Faculty of Mathematics researchers, on being named a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC). They are among the seven University of Waterloo researchers to receive this honour and among 93 new fellows elected by their peers for outstanding scholarly, scientific, and artistic achievement across Canada.

Phelim is a professor emeritus at Waterloo and a professor of business and economics and Wilfrid Laurier University. He is an actuary whose seminal research work in finance and insurance has won international recognition. He uses mathematical models to solve problems at the interface of these fields. Boyle has made pioneering contributions to quantitative finance and his ideas have transformed how actuaries handle financial risk. His research has influenced financial practice by providing sophisticated tools for financial institutions to better manage their risks.

Read the full article on Math News.

Four graduate students were awarded a departmental research presentation award by the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, but that's not all they have in common. They all came to Waterloo because they knew of the excellence of the Statistics programs, research, and professors. Their backgrounds vary, as do their research areas, but they have all had a great experience.

Speeding is the riskiest kind of aggressive driving, according to a unique analysis of data from on-board devices in vehicles.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo examined data from 28 million trips for possible links between four bad driving behaviours – speeding, hard braking, hard acceleration and hard cornering – and the likelihood of crashes.

Read the full article on the Math News site.