Biography
The Index of Scottish Life Expectancy (THISLE) (mortality inequalities mapping tool)
Andrew Cairns is Director of the Duncan Laboratory for Insurance Data Science and Professor of Actuarial Mathematics.
He is well known both in the UK and internationally for his research in mortality modelling, and financial risk management for pension plans and life insurers.
In recent years he has been working on the modelling of longevity risk: how this can be modelled, measured and priced, and how it can be transferred to the financial markets. Amongst his work in this field, he has developed a number of new and innovative stochastic mortality models. His work also extends to statistical analysis of mortality and health inequalities and understanding why these arise.
Other work includes the modelling of interest rate risk and quantitative risk management for renewable energy operators.
Prizes:
- 2008: the Halmstad Prize awarded by the Society of Actuaries.
- 2016: the Robert I. Mehr award awarded by the American Risk and Insurance Association.
- 2026: the senior Gauss prize awarded by the German Actuarial Asociation (DAV and DGVFM).
He is an active member of the UK and international actuarial profession in both research and education: he qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries in 1993; from 2007 to 2017 he was editor-in-chief of the leading international actuarial journal ASTIN Bulletin; he has been an editor of Insurance: Mathematics and Economics since 2023; and in 2005 he was elected as a corresponding member of the Swiss Association of Actuaries.
In 2017 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh - Scotland's national academy of science and letters; and in 2026, he was appointed as a Fellow of the Academy for the Mathematical Sciences.