Institute of Actuaries Bestows Highest Honor for Work on Pricing Financial Risks

June 30, 2008

London's Institute of Actuaries, which was founded in 1848 and is the oldest actuarial body in the world, has, for the first time in a decade, found a candidate for its highest honor.

Phelim Boyle of Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., was awarded the Institute's Gold Medal, which was established in 1919 and has been awarded only a dozen other times in the last 90 years. Actuarial science uses mathematics to model financial risks.

"It is a great honour and a great pleasure to receive this award," Boyle told the Exchange Morning Post. "I have been very lucky to work with great colleagues, smart students, and very clever co-authors."

Boyle was recognized for his pioneering work on pricing financial risks and developing products to transfer risks. He is the author of the influential 1977 paper "Options: A Monte Carlo Approach," published in the Journal of Financial Economics, which led to the widespread use of derivatives in the 1980s. The Monte Carlo method of pricing options is still widely used today.

Boyle has authored about 100 papers and written or contributed to several books. An advisor to financial institutions in the United States and Canada, Boyle is a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and an honorary fellow of the Society of Actuaries, in Ireland.

Colleague Brian Smith heralded Boyle as someone "instrumental in developing the next generation of finance scholars through our doctoral program."

Source: Institute of Actuaries, May 20, 2008; Exchange Morning Post, June 24, 2008.