Advances in Risk Analysis & Management: A focus on Emergent Risks

Dr. Amit APTE is Professor and Chair of the Department of Data Science at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from The University of Texas at Austin and has held research and faculty positions at TIFR Bangalore, ICTS, MSRI Berkeley, and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. His research lies at the interface of applied mathematics, data science, and geophysical sciences, with a focus on data assimilation, nonlinear filtering, dynamical systems, and monsoon modeling. He has made significant contributions to the theory and stability of particle and Kalman filters and to non-Gaussian data assimilation, with publications in leading journals such as Physica D, SIAM J. Control and Optimization, and Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics.

Dr. Samir BEN HARIZ is an Associate Professor of Statistics at the Institute of Risk and Insurance, Le Mans University, France. He obtained his PhD in Statistics from Université Paris-Sud. His research lies at the intersection of probability theory and statistical inference, with a strong focus on change-point analysis, long-memory processes, efficient estimation, and numerical methods.  Samir has developed an active international research profile through visiting and invited positions at Sun Yat-sen University and City University of Hong Kong, alongside sustained international collaborations. In parallel, he contributes to applied research projects with major French insurance groups, including Covéa and Groupama, focusing on risk modeling, dependence structures, and the statistical analysis of insurance data.

Dr. Kevin CARRIER is an Associate Professor at École Polytechnique, affiliated with the LIX laboratory. His research focuses on post-quantum cryptography, error-correcting codes, and the cryptanalysis of code- and lattice-based schemes. He works on decoding algorithms, near-collision search, and reverse engineering of communication systems, with applications to cryptographic security. Kevin Carrier received his PhD from Sorbonne University in 2020, following research conducted at INRIA Paris and the French Ministry of Defense. He has contributed to several international conferences in cryptography, including Crypto, Eurocrypt, and Asiacrypt, and is involved in the NIST post-quantum standardization process. He also supervises PhD students and teaches cryptography, information theory, and cybersecurity. 

Yen CHIN  is Vice President of Risk Data Solutions and subject matter expert for property risk management offered through CatNet® - SwissRe's proprietary location intelligence tool for worldwide natural hazard exposure management. With his core knowledge working for Catastrophe Modelling vendors Moody's (RMS) and Verisk (AIR) Yen shares experience for Solutions developed for property risks prone to Natural Catastrophes for the Re(Insurance) Industry. Based in Singapore, Yen's 29 year career spans across globe from US, Bermuda and UK. Graduated as a Bachelor of (Mechanical) Engineering from Oxford Brookes University, UK and industry experience includes Telecoms, IT/ISP, (Re)Insurance for P&C and L&H in the functions of Business Development, Solutions Sales, Product Development and Catastrophe Modelling.

Dr. Bikramjit DAS is is an Associate Professor in Engineering Systems and Design at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. He earned his Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University. He analyses rare and extreme events using tools from applied probability, optimization, and, statistical learning. The application domain for his research spans insurance, finance, telecommunication, distributed/federated learning, congestion and queuing, and social and economic networks.   He was a post-doctoral researcher at the RiskLab at ETH Zurich before joining SUTD and held visiting positions at MIT and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. 

Thibault IMBERT is Principal at Munich Re - Insurance Consulting.  

After a MSc in Mathematics and a MSc in Actuarial Science, Thibault worked 8 years in primary insurance, holding various positions related to actuarial functions, joined Munich Re in 2018, as part of their Consulting Unit.   

Thibault is strongly committed to advancing the insurance industry, by supporting both established players and innovative Insurtechs. He led several innovative projects in the industry in various geographies and across the whole insurance value chain. 

His main expertise lies in product development and pricing, starting from the initial product launch considerations until long-term portfolio steering and performance monitoring.

Hirokazu IWASAWA is active in education and research in data science in the actuarial field in Japan. He has contributed to data science initiatives within the Institute of Actuaries of Japan, including the Data Science Related Basic Research Subcommittee and the ASTIN-related Study Group. He regularly lectures for the IAJ and at several universities, including Waseda University, where he serves as Guest Professor. He is the author of more than 20 books covering probability, statistics, mathematical puzzles, non-life insurance mathematics, and predictive modeling. He is the originator of the AGLM and MID methods. A co-authored paper on AGLM received the 2021 Hachemeister Prize. 

Dr. Shinichi KAMIYA is an Associate Professor of Risk and Insurance and Co-Director of the Insurance Risk and Finance Research Centre at Nanyang Business School, NTU  Singapore. He received his Ph.D. in Risk and Insurance from the Univ. Wisconsin-Madison in 2010 (and a MSc in Applied Mathematics, Univ. Illinois, Urbana–Champaign). His research has been published in leading finance and insurance journals. Shinichi has received several academic awards (Robert C. Witt Best Paper Award, 2023; the NBS Research Award, 2020;  the European Financial Management Readers’ Choice Best Paper Award, 2019). His current research focuses on climate and catastrophe risks and corporate risk management. 

Sie Liang LAU was appointed Head of Cyber & Casualty at Samsung Re in June 2025, based in Singapore. He is responsible for building Samsung Re’s Cyber and Casualty portfolios, globally for the former and ex-US/Canada for the latter, while also supporting Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance’s global cyber ambitions. His mandate includes developing reinsurance and primary product strategies, designing innovative underwriting solutions, and establishing partnerships to drive growth in both emerging and mature markets. Prior to joining Samsung Re, Sie Liang was Head of Cyber, Asia Pacific at Gallagher Re, where he led treaty and facultative placements and developed embedded personal cyber initiatives. Earlier, he spent over a decade with SCOR Reinsurance, heading Treaty Pricing for Asia Pacific and later leading Lloyd’s Capital Provisions and Cyber in London. With experience spanning actuarial, underwriting, and broking, he brings a holistic perspective to global cyber and casualty risk. 

Vasundhara RAMALINGAM  (FIA)

Senior Vice President, Actuarial Services & Advisory at Guy Carpenter (Marsh). Fellow with the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries UK

Vas Ramalingam is a General Insurance Actuary with over 15 years of experience. She joined Guy Carpenter (Singapore) in August 2022. Her key focus areas include Reinsurance optimization, Pricing, Structuring and Advisory for Southeast Asia region. Vas is also the Cyber subject matter expert for the region and works closely with GC’s Cyber Analytics & Centre of Excellence team in London.  Prior to joining GC, Vas worked with UIB Asia (Singapore) for nearly 5 years as their Reinsurance Actuary. Her previous work experience in India spanned a diverse range of roles across Mortgage Underwriting, Pensions Actuarial Valuation, Investments Monitoring, P&C Pricing, Regulatory reporting & Capital adequacy modellin;

Cheryl TANG is a Senior Cyber Underwriter for APAC at Swiss Re, Vice President, CUO P&C Reinsurance, based in Singapore. She joined Swiss Re in 2025 and is responsible for cyber reinsurance underwriting across all markets in the Asia Pacific region.

Cheryl brings extensive experience across both reinsurance and insurance, having held cyber underwriting and broking roles at Munich Re, Allianz, and Howden. With a broad perspective across the cyber insurance value chain and regional market expertise, she plays a key role in supporting Swiss Re’s cyber underwriting strategy and delivering innovative solutions to clients in an evolving risk landscape.

TBA

Dr. Sreekar VADLAMANI is an Associate Professor at the TIFR–Centre for Applicable Mathematics (TIFR-CAM), Bangalore. He received his Ph.D. in Statistics from the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, where his work focused on the diffusion and geometry of shapes under stochastic flows. His research interests span stochastic analysis, the geometry of random fields, and random graphs, with applications ranging from risk quantification and inverse problems to climate science. Prof. Vadlamani has held research and visiting positions at institutions including Stanford University, Lund University, IIT Bombay, and the Indian Statistical Institute. He has published extensively in leading probability and statistics journals and has been the recipient of several prestigious fellowships and awards. He is actively involved in graduate education, research supervision, and international scientific collaboration. 

Dr. Stéphanne VANNITSEM is Professor (Practice) at Nanyang Technological University, with joint appointments in the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the Asian School of the Environment. Trained as a physicist (Doctorate in Physical Sciences), he previously held senior research positions at the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, where he developed a strong focus on the dynamics and predictability of the atmosphere and climate. His research explores variability, uncertainty, and complexity in climate systems using tools from nonlinear dynamics, chaos theory, stochastic processes, and statistical physics. He develops mathematical models and advanced time-series analysis methods, increasingly complemented by machine-learning approaches. His work has contributed to improved understanding of atmospheric predictability, causal dependencies, and low-frequency climate variability, with publications in leading journals across climate science and applied mathematics. 

Dr. Zhengjun ZHANG is a tenured Professor and Director of the School of Data Science and AI at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, and Deputy Director of the Center for Forecasting Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Previously, he was a tenured Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with a joint appointment in Biomedical Informatics, and served as Chair of the Department of Statistics and Data Science at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include statistical theory and methods, econometrics, financial econometrics, computational medicine, and extreme climate studies. He has published over 100 papers in leading international journals (such as JASA, JBES, Stat. Sinnica, JDS, EJS, STaRF). Professor Zhang is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the American Statistical Association, and currently serves as an Associate Editor for several major statistics journals.

Pierre Alquier is a Professor of Statistics & Machine Learning at ESSEC Business School (IDO dep.), APAC campus Singapore, and the Associate Director of ESSEC CREAR at Singapore, where he leads the CREAR Working Group on Risk for a term. His research focuses on the statistical theory of machine learning, with a special interest for Bayesian algorithms. He recently published lecture notes on the topic: "User-Friendly Introduction to PAC-Bayes bounds" (Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning, 2024). He serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Machine Learning Research, the Electronic Journal of Statistics and Statistics and Computing.

Alexandre Brouste is a Professor of Statistics at Le Mans Université, France, and Head of the Laboratoire Manceau de Mathématiques. His work focuses on asymptotic efficiency and on the development of fast, frugal, and efficient statistical methods. He is the coordinator of the EFFI project. He also holds two research chairs in statistics for insurance, in partnership with Groupama and Covéa. He is member and president of the specialized group RisquesAEF - Risques Assuranciel, Economique et Financier’ of the SFdS. 

Riada Boukeroui-Djebbar is a Senior Risk Manager with over 16 years of experience in non-life insurance and banking. She holds a Master’s in Mathematics, specializing in Statistics, from Paris-Saclay University. She has expertise in credit and capital modelling, pricing, reserving, reinsurance, and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) under regulatory frameworks across Europe and Singapore. She has led economic capital model development, risk-based pricing strategies, reserving improvements, and reinsurance analysis, and advises on integrating AI and machine learning into regulated risk environments while ensuring governance and model integrity. 

Marie Kratz is a Professor at ESSEC Business School (IDODepartment), directing the Risk Research Center CREAR (Paris–Singapore) and the ESSEC-ISUP Risk & Actuarial Track. A Fellow of the Institut des Actuaires and member (former president) of the SFdS - RisquesAEF  group, her research spans probability & statistics,  with emphasis on extreme value theory, and risk analysis & management for finance, insurance, and emerging risks. She leads CREAR WG Risk seminars, coordinates international projects, teaches at ESSEC and ISUP, serves on editorial boards, supervises research, and is regularly invited for research stays and presentations worldwide. 

Christine Sun is Chair of the Singapore Actuarial Society ERM Committee and a Senior Transaction Manager at Swiss Re, Vice President, based in Singapore. She is responsible for managing Structured Solutions Transactions across the Asia Pacific region. Christine has more than ten years of experience in reinsurance. She is a qualified actuary with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) and a Certified Enterprise Risk Actuary. Before joining Swiss Re, she worked as a Reserving Actuary at SCOR, responsible for reserving across Property, Motor, Liability, Engineering, Marine and Agriculture lines of business in Asia and Australia. 

Besma Zeddini is an AI and cybersecurity researcher and faculty member at CY Tech, France, affiliated with the CNRS SATIE laboratory. She serves as Deputy Director for Innovation and Partnerships, Director of the Specialized Master’s in Smart Systems & IoT, and Head of the Cybersecurity program. She plays a key role in research valorization and technology transfer, fostering collaboration with industry to advance AI, cybersecurity, and intelligent systems. Actively engaged in initiatives such as CY Tech’s Innovation Lab and the “All Aboard Engineering” challenge, she supports both technical and soft skill development in students and leads strategic partnerships, including with Orange, to strengthen tech education.