Description: The Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute received a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to educate insurance actuaries on the use of wildfire risk datasets and models to be developed by researchers from academia and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Description: While many know that machine learning is a big deal and even have a general idea of what it is, many do not know what machine learning can do for them. As an alternative to citing achievements or explaining algorithms, this article outlines the challenges that occur in statistics and the solutions that machine learning offers. Some of those challenges include correlated predictors, missing data, data interaction, and prediction intervals. Corresponding solutions include regularization technics, missing value imputation with KNN, tree based models, and cluster analysis for backtesting.