Honoured for 25 years at ETH Zurich: Paul Embrechts becomes ASA Fellow

Paul Embrechts has travelled specially to the USA to receive the award, where today, at this year's Joint Statistical Meeting of the external page American Statistical Association ASA in Boston, he will be presented with a certificate marking this appointment.

The ASA is honouring the 61-year-old ETH Professor for his contribution to extreme value statistics and quantitative risk management in the insurance and financial industry, for promoting international collaboration and for excellence in keeping and disseminating statistics.

Building bridges between disciplines

ASA Fellowships have been in existence for nearly a hundred years. Candidates are nominated by other ASA members. "I would like to congratulate Paul on this honour," said ASA President Nathaniel Schenker. "His work has contributed a great deal to progress in statistical science and rightly earned him the respect and admiration of his ASA colleagues."

"This Fellowship is a nice recognition of my work," said Paul Embrechts. "After all, I'm not even a statistician but an insurance mathematician. But I have shown in my work how bridges can be built between these two disciplines." He said he was delighted that he was now being honoured for this bridge-building. Furthermore: "For a scientist, recognition from colleagues around the world is extremely important. However, needless to say, I shan't be stopping here. I'll carry on working."

Linking theory and practice

There can't be many professors of mathematics who are lucky enough, on the one hand, to be able to work on new methods of understanding risk at a top university and, on the other, also to have the chance to help industry put those findings into practice. Embrechts: "I think the ASA must realise that I am in that special position."

He said he tries to link theory and practice as closely together as possible. For example, one of the concrete applications for his work is in calculating risk capital for insurance companies. "I work very closely with insurance companies and banks. In 1994 we set up the external page RiskLab in cooperation with the banks and insurance companies, to carry out pre-competitive research. Zurich offers very fertile ground for that."

25 years at ETH Zurich

Embrechts, who was born in Belgium, has been at ETH Zurich since 1989. "My time here at ETH Zurich has been incredibly exciting for me as a scientist. When I walk into the Main Building in the mornings, I'm very proud to be a part of this long-established and very rich scientific culture. Being able to work here is an honour and a stroke of luck for any scientist," says Embrechts.