The annual Actuarial Research Conference (ARC) had its 60th iteration this year. During that time there has been stability (almost every conference has been held on a university campus) but also considerable change. My first ARC was in 1975 at Brown University. There were about 25 presentations, given one at a time. The speakers were mostly professors along with a few industry actuaries. At the 2025 ARC at York University, there were 137 presentations in seven parallel sessions. Equally dramatic was that 54 of the speakers were graduate students. This article will focus on the rise of graduate student presenters and how the Education and Research Section Council worked to improve the quality of these presentations.
In the early days, Ph.D. programs in actuarial science were rare. Most actuarial faculty members studied in an adjacent field (statistics for me). As programs proliferated, graduate students started attending—and speaking at—the ARC. Doing so provided networking opportunities in advance of their job searches and an opportunity to practice their presentation skills and gain feedback on their research.
As a long-time friend of the council, I had participated in overseeing the ARC as well as regularly attending. It was readily apparent that the quality of the student presentations was lacking (the same could be said of many of the faculty offerings). This was often students’ first public presentation of a research topic. Aside from having a solid understanding of the topic, they often lacked visual aids (this was in the days of overhead projectors and transparencies), didn’t project when speaking, and didn’t understand their audience.
To improve the quality of the presentations, in 2006 the council instituted speaker awards for graduate student presenters, with me in charge. In addition to being publicly recognized, the top (typically five) presenters received cash awards, with a larger award for the best presenter. A set of criteria was developed:
- Quality of slides
- Eye contact with audience and other body language
- Introduction (setting up the topic)
- Body (well organized and logically presented)
- Conclusion
- Time management
- Understanding the audience
It is important to note that these items related to presentation skills that were independent of the content. There was no evaluation of the value or accuracy of the research.
Each year, I recruited judges who agreed to attend as many presentations as they could. They filled out a scoresheet based on the specified criteria with weights and a rubric. Over time, the following changes were made:
- From 2008–2010 a talented presenter won prizes each year. Starting in 2011 a repeat winner would receive recognition but no cash (unless they moved up to earn the top prize).
- Starting in 2013, joint presentations were no longer eligible for an award.
- In 2020 and 2021 no awards were given. The ARC in those years was conducted virtually, and it was too difficult to evaluate the presenters.
- In 2022 the awards returned but with a new format. With numerous parallel sessions, it was difficult to find judges who could cover enough sessions to fairly compare the speakers. We switched to a crowd-source approach. Every attendee at a presentation was asked to fill out an evaluation using categories similar to those previously used by the judges. The average of the scores were then used to rank the speakers. In addition, we asked for comments about what was done well and what could be improved. These comments were summarized and returned to the speakers.
In reading the comments from 2022–2025, several themes appeared that can apply to any speaker delivering a research presentation:
- Look at the audience, not the screen. Today the slides are almost always available on a monitor. There is no need to look at the screen unless pointing to a specific item.
- Speak slowly and clearly, making sure the person farthest away from you can hear.
- Keep the slides uncluttered. The audience should be listening to your words and explanations, not reading the slides.
- Realize that you can only do so much in 25 minutes (the typical ARC timing). You cannot show all your theorems and proofs. What you can do is describe the problem and highlight the approach taken and the solution. At best, you can get people interested in what you are doing and motivated to read your paper or ask you questions later.
I am writing this article because 2025 was the last year for these speaker awards. There are three main reasons. First, the objective has been achieved. The presentations are far better than they were when we started. At the most recent ARC, there were many prize-worthy presentations. Second, with the transition from Sections to Communities, the ARC is under new management. Removing this activity will help ensure the other aspects of the conference continue to meet the high expectations of the attendees. And finally, after 20 years of administering the program, it is time for me step down, and I wouldn’t want someone else to take up this intensive task.
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Stuart Klugman, FSA, CERA, Ph.D., is an SOA Senior Staff Fellow. Stuart can be reached at sklugman@soa.org.