News

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.

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science would like to highlight the recent achievements of two of its department members, Mario Ghossoub and Mirabelle Huynh, for earning their designation of Fellow of the Society of Actuaries.

Congratulations to the two of them for this extraordinary achievement!

The University of Waterloo, which is among the top universities in the world for actuarial science and number one in co-operative learning, has combined these two things to help build a stronger insurance and pension industry in Indonesia.

Aukosh Jagannath holds a PhD in Mathematics from the Courant Institute at New York University from 2016. Since then he has been an NSF mathematical sciences postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and Harvard University as well as a Benjamin Pierce Fellow at Harvard University. His research interests are in probability and analysis and their applications to statistical physics, combinatorial optimization, the mathematics of data science, and high-dimensional statistics. Aukosh will help develop a stronger theoretical foundation for data science and expand our links with other departments and faculties at Waterloo.

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science is extremely proud to announce that Diana Skryzdlo has been granted the Distinction in Teaching award. Diana's, enthusiasm in the classroom and dedication to her students earned her a top spot for this award.  

The Faculty of Mathematics Award for Distinction in Teaching is granted to teachers in the Faculty of Mathematics who have consistently demonstrated outstanding pedagogical skills and a deep commitment to our students’ education. 

Fangda Liu holds a PhD in Actuarial Science from the University of Waterloo from 2015. She was then an assistant professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics for 3 years, and joins us from an assistant professor position in the College of Business at Georgia State University. Her research interests include reinsurance/insurance, risk measures, risk sharing and market equilibria. Her work provides a good balance of theory and applications and she will strengthen the actuarial science group within our department.

The University of Waterloo and the Risk Managment, Economic Sustainability, and Actuarial Science Development in Indonesia (READI) are planning to graduate 745 actuarial science students in Indonesia by 2021.  These students will hopefully improve the already growing insurance industry in Indonesia by adding a fresh perspective on changing risk mitigation in a world of unpredictable risks. 

This cohert of students could not come at a better time. Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, is currently sinking at an alarming rate as rising sea levels are threating the city, while many of it's inhabitants are uninsured.   

Read the full story on WIRED's website.

The Risk Management, Economic Sustainability and Actuarial Science (READI) Project has helped launch a government initiative launched in April that regulates the implementation of co-operative education in Indonesia.

This initiative is part of the work that READI, housed in Waterloo’s Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, has been undertaking in Indonesia.

Read the full article on the Daily Bulletin. 

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science is pleased to announce Chao Qi (George) Li as the winner of the Samuel Eckler Medal in Actuarial Science.

Award description: 

This prize was established to recognize the contribution of Samuel Eckler to the actuarial profession and is provided by Eckler Partners. The medal, which is cast in gold, is awarded each year to the outstanding graduating student in Honours Actuarial Science.

"In addition to his outstanding performance in actuarial science, George demonstrated great potential in statistics, his performance in my upper year biostatistics course was phenomenal!"

The Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science is proud to announce the winners of the 2019 Teaching Award goes to Mirabelle Huynh and Wayne Oldford!

"Thank you for your commitment to and excellence in teaching"