Andrew Cairns is Professor of Actuarial Mathematics at Heriot-Watt
University, Edinburgh and at the Maxwell Institute for Mathematical Sciences.
He is well known both in the UK and internationally for his research in financial risk management for pension plans and life insurers. In recent years, his research has focused 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, most notably the CBD family. He has also worked extensively on inequalities in all-cause and cause of death mortality, and the evolving impact of Covid-19 on current and future mortality.
His research has received several international prizes including the Halmstad Prize in 2008, the Society of Actuaries Annual Prize in 2009 and the Robert I. Mehr Award in 2016.
Much of his research is focused on delivering rigorous solutions to problems of practical importance. This has resulted in three highly-rated impact case studies for the UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF) and the award of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society's inaugural Impact Prize in 2022.
He is an active member of the UK and international actuarial profession: he qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries in 1993; he has held senior editorial roles at ASTIN Bulletin - The Journal of the International Actuarial Association (1997 to 2017) and Insurance: Mathematics and Economics (since 2023); and in 2005 he was elected as a corresponding member of the Swiss Association of Actuaries. From 2016-2020 he was Director of the Actuarial Research Centre of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
In 2016 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters.