Editor's Note

Poll Positions

In case you’ve been living off the grid, there has been a bit of a kerfuffle about the outcome of the U.S. presidential election — so much so that a few of our members felt compelled to write about it. One author even submitted an article the day after Election Day at around noon U.S. Eastern Time!

Said author, Stephen Mildenhall, writes in the Actuarial Expertise department on just how the data could be so wrong about the final outcome. He creates a scenario (involving dinner plans, of all things!) in which an inquisitive CEO keeps prodding a dedicated employee to dig deeper.

Mildenhall is the newest member of our AR Explorations team. Mildenhall’s research interests include risk theory, capital determination, allocation and optimization, and applying statistics to reserving and ratemaking problems. He is a two-time winner of the CAS Woodward-Fondiller Prize for the best research paper by a new Fellow. We are so fortunate to have him on board, along with Glenn Meyers, Don Mango and Jim Guszcza.

AR Editor in Chief Grover Edie and AR Committee member Jeffrey Baer also opine on the parts data and polls played in the election in the ViewPoint department.

In other news, Annmarie Geddes Baribeau continues with her second story in the series on data — this time focusing on the models in play. Look for her final article in the series in the March/April issue.

CAS President Steve Lowe offers some words of advice as a Random Sampler. The column features excerpts of his Address to New Members, which he gave at the 2016 Annual Meeting in Orlando.

This issue also features the first column by CAS President Nancy Braithwaite who, in a brief aside, marvels at the growing CAS membership. Offered as Exhibts A-M are the group photos of new CAS Fellows and Associates on pages 16-22.

Correction

In the print edition of the November/December 2016 AR, CAS Associate Gloria Gilliam’s last name was misspelled as Gillam in a photo caption for the story “Scenes from the 2016 International Association of Black Actuaries Annual Meeting.”