Honours in Actuarial Studies
Monday May 26 12-1pm
MAT D
Professor Michael Sherris
Agenda
 Professor Sherris - honours entry requirements,
application procedures, supervision, assessment
 Christian Sutherland-Wong - a current student
perspective
 Questions
Entry Requirements
 Competitive entry, limited places (2 to 4)
 Academic qualifications and research potential the
key factors
 High achieving students (distinction average and
higher)
 Keen interest in learning about and doing research
 Topic and availability of supervision
Entry Requirements
 Minimum academic requirements
 at least 71% average in Actuarial Courses (normally much
higher)
 normally gained at least 7 (preferably 8) of the Part I
exemptions,
 no failures, and an overall high credit/distinction average in
your studies (normally distinction or high distinction)
 a proposed thesis topic that can be supervised by the
Actuarial Studies staff
Application
 Honours brochure plus application form
 Application due on last day of Session 2
 Preliminary assessment based on grades and topic
 Interview for applicants may be required
 Notified of outcome after grades are finalised for
Session 2
Why do Honours?
 To develop higher level research skills
 Complete a thesis on a current advanced topic
 To meet requirements to do a Masters by Research
or a PhD now or in the future (perhaps overseas)
 Complete Part II courses (many actuarial honours
applicants have completed these in a 4 year
program)
Courses
 ACTL4000 Thesis (full year) 24 UOC
 ACTL4003 Research Topics in Actuarial Science
(Session 1) 6 UOC
 ACTL4001 and ACTL4002 Actuarial Theory and
Practice A and B (Part II courses - Session 1 and
Session 2) 6 UOC each or 2 electives at Year 3 or
honours level agreed with Head, Actuarial Studies
 1 elective - may include a Year 3 ACTL course
Honours Assessment
 Final grade is based on the maximum of:
Basis 1 - 100% Year 4 - 65% Coursework and 35% Thesis
Basis 2 - 70% Year 4 - 50% Coursework and 50% Thesis and
30% Year 2 and 3 Courses - 2/3rds Actuarial and 1/3rd other
 The mark from this determines Honours grade as follows:
>=90 University medal
>=85 First class
>=75 2nd class 1st Division
>=65 2nd class 2nd Division
>=55 3rd Class
Thesis Assessment
 Components Weight %
Topic - Relevance, Level of Difficulty 5%
Structure of Thesis 10%
Literature Review 25%
Problem Formulation 10%
Data Analysis and/or theoretical developments 15%
Conclusions and Results 10%
Grammar, Spelling, Length 10%
Originality of Contribution 15%
Total 100%
Potential Supervisors
 Professor Michael Sherris
 Associate Professor Emil Valdez
 Dr Tina Castillo
 Dr Jiwook Jang
 Sachi Purcal
 Bernard Wong
Topics
 You can select but need to have a supervisor who
has agreed to supervise the topic
 Most students complete a topic related to current
research interests of staff
 Thesis outline and literature review finalised by end
of Session 1 in Honours year (preferably before)
 Thesis due on last day of Session 2
Topics - Professor Sherris
 Insurance pricing, solvency and capital requirements
 Risk measures and application to premium rating and
investment strategy
 Risk management strategies, risk linked securities
 Application of financial theory and option pricing
theory to insurance and superannuation
Topics - Professor Valdez
 Elliptical Distributions, Copula modeling and
dependencies
 Managing Retirement Income Assets
 Risk Measures and Capital Requirements
 Survival analysis, mortality investigations, competing
risk models
 Application of financial economics in actuarial
science
Topics - Sachi Purcal
 Asset and liability modelling
 Computable general equilibrium models in finance
and insurance
 Insurance and retirement economics
 Application of financial economics to actuarial
problems
Topics - Dr JiWook Jang
 Pricing insurance and reinsurance using advanced
stochastic models
 Electricity pricing and shot-noise process
 Stochastic processes in actuarial science, insurance
and finance
 Theory and application of piecewise deterministic
Markov processes
Topics - Dr Tina Castillo
 Optimal Control in Insurance
 Risk Theory
 Spectral theory of Ordinary Differential Operators
Topics - Bernard Wong
 Coherent Risk Measures and relationship to Financial
Valuation
 Change of Measure and Stochastic Volatility
Modeling
 Stochastic Analysis and Exponential Martingales
 Numerical Methods, Simulation
 Econometric Methods for Continuous Time Financial
Modeling
Christian Sutherland-Wong
 Student perspective
Procedure
 Decide if you want to do research training
 Discuss possible topics with actuarial staff and find
out who might be available to supervise your topic
 If you are really interested, arrange an appointment
with Professor Sherris and Valdez to discuss your
proposed honours study during 2nd session
 Apply before end of Session 2
QUESTIONS
 Entry requirements
 Courses and assessment
 Topics
 Supervisors
 PhD or research degrees