IFoA elects five new Honorary Fellows

Have you read an outstanding actuarial research paper in the past year? If so, you might wish to nominate it for one of the IFoA’s two best paper prizes.

Following a member vote, the IFoA is delighted to announce that five outstanding individuals have been elected as Honorary Fellows. 

• Professor Aled Jones, director of the Global Sustainability Institute (GSI), Anglia Ruskin University. As inaugural director of the GSI, Professor Jones leads a number of research projects in climate finance, energy and behaviour, and resource management, which are topic areas of increasing interest to the actuarial community. 

• Professor Xiaolin Li, dean of the School of Insurance, Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE), Beijing. As founder of the China Institute for Actuarial Science at CUFE, Professor Li has been at the forefront of actuarial teaching in China for over two decades and has played a key role in the development of actuarial skills in China. 

• Professor Donald MacKenzie, professor of sociology, University of Edinburgh. With a background originally in applied mathematics, Professor MacKenzie has achieved high distinction in the social sciences, particularly on the sociology of financial markets and how the participants in those markets behave. 

• Lord Adair Turner, chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Lord Turner is a well known figure in UK financial services through his chairmanship of the Financial Services Authority, during which he led a significant review of the regulation of the banking system. Prior to that position, he led the Pensions Commission, which was a pre-cursor to the most significant pensions reforms in the UK in recent decades. 

• Professor Zhigang Xie, professor of insurance and actuarial studies, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE). Through his role at SUFE, Professor Xie has played a key role in promoting the actuarial profession in China and supporting the education of actuaries of the future. He was an early advocate of the IFoA's examinations in China, with many of his former students now Fellows of the IFoA.
  
  We are delighted to welcome our new Honorary Fellows to the IFoA; full biographies can be found on the IFoA website (bit.ly/HonFellows). Arrangements are being made for the presentation of the Honorary Fellowships at events in the UK and overseas.
  
  The IFoA has over 100 Honorary Fellows, who are renowned experts and leaders in their fields of business, academia, government and public bodies in the UK and internationally. Honorary Fellows are invited on the basis of achieving distinction in areas relating to actuarial science or giving significant service to the actuarial profession and will have an ongoing relationship with the IFoA. To read more about our Honorary Fellows or to nominate future Honorary Fellows, please visit bit.ly/1ufH3JL