Dr Lewis Ramsden
Lecturer in Actuarial Science

Profile

Biography

Dr. Lewis Ramsden is the co-programme leader for ‘BSc Actuarial Science' and teaches across a number of second year modules within the programme. Lewis joined the University of York in August 2019, prior to which he held positions as a Lecturer in Actuarial Mathematics at the University of Liverpool in London and the University of Hertfordshire, where he taught across a number of modules in Actuarial Mathematics, Probability and Statistics. 

Lewis has also recently held the role of ’Subject Matter Expert’ (CS2) as part of a task force within the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) to redesign the professional actuarial examinations in the UK. 

Lewis obtained his MMath degree in Mathematics from the University of Liverpool, where he continued his studies to complete a Doctorate in Mathematics with applications to the actuarial study of risk and ruin theory. During his time as a PhD student he presented his research at a number of international conferences, was an invited speaker and was trusted with a number of teaching responsibilities alongside his own research. 

Research

Overview

Lewis currently conducts research into fluctuation theory for Lévy-type processes with applications in risk theory and financial mathematics. More specifically, he investigates the distribution of quantities relating to the evolution of stochastic processes that exhibit stationary and independent increments (and their generalisations). 

One application of such processes can be seen in the context of insurance risk modelling, where the stochastic process represents the wealth or surplus of an insurance company. In this case, it is desirable for the company to understand how their future (random) cash flow may behave through a variety of associated risk quantities. For example, the probability of and time until ruin (insolvency), the deficit at ruin, the amount of time spent within a certain interval etc., all of which can be determined using a combination of methods in stochastic analysis, applied probability and advanced calculus.

Publications

Selected publications

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Actuarial Modelling
• Financial Modelling with R
• Quantitative Methods for Finance 
• Introduction to Programming in R - A short course

Other teaching

Previous teaching responsibilities:

• Introduction to Risk Theory
• Life Contingencies
• Linear Statistical Modelling
• Multivariate Statistics