Description: It highlights key initiatives and leadership changes within the SOA Education and Research (E&R) Section in year 2025.

Description: In the spring of 2019, Dr. Cai started to serve as the Actuarial Science Program coordinator at Salisbury University, a medium-sized public teaching school in Maryland. At that time, the program was small, with only two faculty members who focused on both statistics and actuarial science, with approximately 10 students. During the next five years, the program did make some achievements in curriculum development, student exam preparation, job placement, and recognition, but Dr. Cai continued to have a dream to make the program unique. Dr. Cai believed that the skill sets students learned, even from a small program, could enable them to compete with anyone on a global basis. In spring 2024, Dr. Cai advised a group of exceptional actuarial students to participate in the 2024 Society of Actuaries (SOA) Student Research Case Study Challenge (SRCSC), and the team won third place – —behind two teams from the University of New South Wales, Australia. This article is the story of the journey.

Description: Article describes accomplishments as Chair during the year. Four accomplishments are mentioned: i) Actuarial Research Conference ii) Early Career Award, iii) Establishment of Outstanding Educator Award, iv) Push to create surveys from the section containing a reservoir of ideas that can be used for webinars, podcasts, etc.

Description: Milliman has embarked on a multiyear aspirational effort with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Insurance and Risk Financing Facility (IRFF) to build actuarial capacity and, as a result, support economic development in the developing world. The Global Actuarial Initiative (GAIN) was launched and announced at the 77th United Nations General Assembly on September 18, 2022 and aims to enhance and strengthen the actuarial profession in multiple target countries. GAIN efforts are focused on the goal of sustainable economic development by advancing effective risk management in developing nations. The interventions we embark on through GAIN will vary by country, reflecting its current actuarial needs, what we see as opportunities for improvement, and more importantly what the local stakeholders see as the most useful activities.

Description: This interview with Andrés Villegas, an Associate Professor at UNSW Sydney, explores his journey from Colombia to Australia, his research on mortality modeling, and his contributions like the R package StMoMo. He discusses the importance of mentorship, industry-academia collaboration, and the role of actuaries in addressing global issues such as population aging and climate risk.

Description: A description of a new award for outstanding educators in actuarial science.