Department of Risk Management & Insurance
Center of Actuarial Excellence
The Department of Risk Management & Insurance was one of the first institutions to be named a Center of Actuarial Excellence by the Society of Actuaries. The Centers of Actuarial Excellence program allows universities and colleges with outstanding actuarial programs to compete for grants for education and research.
Actuarial Education
We offer a wide portfolio of academic programs in the field of actuarial science. Our undergraduate offerings include a B.B.A. in actuarial science as well as a five-year B.S. in mathematics that culminates in a master of actuarial science degree.
Our graduate programs include the master of actuarial science as well as two innovative dual degrees: a master of actuarial science/master of science in analytics and a master of actuarial science/master of science in mathematical risk management.

Actuarial Research
We foster cross-disciplinary research that compounds actuarial questions or methodology with elements from economics, finance and statistics.
Robinson’s excellence in actuarial and insurance research is reflected in editorial roles held by our faculty members. Dani Bauer serves as an editor of the ASTIN Bulletin as well as associate editor of the Journal of Risk and Insurance.
Faculty Industry Awards
- 2015 Charles A. Hachemeister Prize
- Awarded by the Casualty Actuarial Society to Daniel Bauer and George Zanjani
- 2015 Bob Alting von Geusau Memorial Prize
- Awarded by the International Actuarial Association to Daniel Bauer
- 2014 award for the “best paper in non-life insurance”
- Presented at the International Congress of Actuaries for Daniel Bauer and George Zanjani
- 2010 Casualty Actuarial Society ARIA Award
- George Zanjani
- 2009 Life Section Prize
- Awarded by the International Actuarial Association of Actuaries to Daniel Bauer
- 2008 SCOR Actuarial Prize Germany
- First prize to Daniel Bauer

Recent Grants from the Center of Actuarial Excellence
- “New Trends in Longevity,” 2015-present
- The basis of our research is that there are fundamental differences between modeling and managing financial and mortality risk. While for financial risk the focus is on modeling short-term volatility, for mortality risk the most relevant risk appears to be a change in the long-term development—or trend—of mortality rates, which could have disastrous consequences in view of the sufficiency of reserves. Our objective is to develop a research program that focuses on modeling mortality trends rather than the variability in mortality rates—and the inference for and the evaluation of resulting models. While this may sound rather straightforward at first glance, we believe that this area is largely unexplored and that this simple change in perspective could yield significant advances in understanding, analyzing, and mitigating mortality/longevity risk—although it is also associated with considerable technical challenges requiring advanced statistical and probabilistic methods.
Involved Faculty
- Daniel Bauer, principal investigator
New York Life Professor of Insurance, associate professor - Liang Peng
professor
Publications
- Leng, Xuan and Liang Peng (2015). “Inference pitfalls in Lee-Carter model for forecasting mortality,” submitted.
- Leng, Xuan and Liang Peng (2015). “Test for unit root in Lee-Carter mortality model,” submitted.
- Zhu, Nan and Daniel Bauer (2015). “Modeling and Forecasting Mortality Projections,” working paper.
Conference and Seminar Presentations
- July 2015: “Mortality and Longevity Risk: Methods, Models and Management,” presentation by Daniel Bauer at the 2015 CEAR-Huebner Summer Risk Institute
- Daniel Bauer, principal investigator