The 2017 Dies academicus ceremony took place at the University of Lausanne on Friday, June 2. The eminent actuarial science Professor Elias Shiu was awarded the title of Doctor honoris causa of the University of Lausanne, on the proposal of the Faculty of Business and Economics.
Profile
Professor Elias Shiu is a researcher with an outstanding reputation among the actuarial scientific community. After studying mathematics at the University of Manitoba and the California Institute of Technology, Elias Shiu moved into the actuarial and financial sciences. He was one of the very first researchers to introduce modern finance methods into actuarial techniques.
Although his research has focused primarily on optimizing investments and managing the risks of modern insurance products, he has also made a significant contribution to the Risk Theory. In particular, he developed a unifying approach to the multiple problems in Ruin Theory, in collaboration with Hans-Ulrich Gerber, a professor (now honorary) at the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne. This approach has been so successful that six international workshops have already been organized on Gerber-Shiu functions in five different countries, to discuss the scientific research that uses these concepts and associated techniques.
He has been awarded several prizes for his research, including the David Garrick Halmstad Prize and the Edward A. Lew Award. He has also held editorial positions with the main academic actuarial journals, including Insurance: Mathematics and Economics and the North American Actuarial Journal. As a member of numerous committees and working groups of international influence, he has worked on defining training needs for future actuaries and transferring recent knowledge into practice. He is also recognized for his immense contribution to the teaching of actuarial science and modernizing the financial and mathematical techniques used in the insurance field.
Professor Shiu has a longstanding relationship with UNIL, including lecturing and teaching in two international summer schools, both organized by the Institute of Actuarial Science (now a department in the Faculty of Business and Economics) in conjunction with the Swiss Association of Actuaries (ASA).