Maple Leaf Research Award
The Actuarial Foundation of Canada (AFC) is pleased to offer the Maple Leaf Research Award (MLRA), which encourages and supports graduate and undergraduate students pursuing actuarial science and mathematics. The award was created following a generous donation of $100,000 by Joe Cheng in 2016.
Past MLRA Winners
2026 – Dr Hong Li and Xiaoying Zhang, University of Guelph
The award recognized research and a paper, “Climate-Loss Tail Risk and Financing Costs of P&C Insurers”. This research included collaboration with industry participants.
2023 – Cherie Ng, Simon Fraser University
The 2023 award was presented to Cherie for her paper “Controlling the Effects of Adverse Selection in Flexible Benefit Plans: A Pricing-Based Approach.” Cherie’s work was guided by Canadian Institute of Actuaries’ Fellows Barbara Sanders and Jean-François Bégin.
2021 – Zhuoxuan (Vanessa) Wu, University of Waterloo
The 2021 MLRA was awarded to Vanessa for her master’s thesis “On the Comparison of Distribution-Free Chain Ladder Reserve Estimates and Risk Adjustment Under the Framework of IFRS 17.” Her thesis was published in May 2020 and supervised by Ken Seng Tan.
Vanessa described her experiences as follows:
As many of you who may be struggling for the ocean of research topics or wandering on the road towards the significance of researching experience, I also “scratched my head” at an early-middle stage of my research. If conducting research is like building a house, I have worked out several sketches and teared all those up, built the ground floor and pushed it down, decorated the interior and fully renovated.
It was not until several months after I started my career that I realized how valuable this back-and-forth procedure was. Knowledge learned from research is definitely important, but what benefitted me the most from the research experience is the capability which enables me to respond to new tasks quickly and to think with broader mindset when encountering bottlenecks. Every difficulty I met during my research is like a miniature of hardship I go through during daily work, and I am better positioned to resolve these problems thanks for what I have gained from the research.
Thus, no matter you are threatened by the possible difficulties you foresee for the research or just simply wondering “do it or not,” I would like to share without hesitation that “Go for it, enjoy the journey, and you will be grateful to every effort you have taken.”
At last but not least, I would like to take this chance to thank my supervisor, Professor Ken Seng Tan, for the greatest support and guidance throughout the journey of my research.
Past Sponsored Research
2014 – Canadian Retirement Income: How Much Do Financial Returns Matter?
2011 – The Canadian National Retirement Risk Index: Employing Statistics Canada’s LifePaths to Measure the Financial Security of Future Canadian Seniors.
2010 – Pricing the Cost of Basic Needs for the Canadian Elderly.
2008 and 2006 – Stochastic Modelling Symposium Outstanding Papers. The AFC participated in the Stochastic Modelling Symposium, organized by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, in 2006 and 2008. In both years, the AFC awarded a prize of $5,000 to the author of the paper receiving the Outstanding Paper Award.
2004 – The Bootstrap for Calibrating Equity Models.