
Linfeng Zhang joined the Department of Mathematics at The Ohio State University (OSU) as an assistant professor in2023. His research focus is on Actuarial Science with broach research directions, including risk sharing, capital allocation, and cyber risk management. Generally, he focuses on addressing issues associated with emerging risks through optimization and machine learning techniques.
He earned his Bachelor's degree in Actuarial Science with distinction and Statistics with high distinction from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He remained at UIUC for an additional year to complete his Master's degree in Finance. After that, he worked as a research assistant at the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence, under the guidance of Dr. Jay Kesan for three years. Later, he returned to UIUC and completed a Ph.D. in Mathematics with a concentration in Actuarial Science and Risk Analytics under the supervision of Dr.Runhuan Feng and Dr. Alfred Chong.
Throughout his Ph.D. studies, he received awards from the Society of Actuaries and the Casualty Actuarial Society for his research projects. He also won prizes for his research work at various conferences, including the Actuarial Research Conference (ARC) and the International Congress on Insurance: Mathematics and Economics (IME). During his final year of Ph.D. studies, he served as a visiting assistant professor of Actuarial Science at Drake University in Iowa. After that, he joined OSU as an assistant professor in the fall of 2023.
Linfeng is dedicated to serving the actuarial community by advancing actuarial research and fostering interdisciplinary collaborations. He has contributed to organizing major actuarial conferences for many years and has played a role in the inception of Risk Sciences, an academic journal of general interest that seeks to unite researchers and research in the field of risk. He is also committed to enhancing the Actuarial Science program at OSU and looks forward to working with OSU students and faculty on actuarial research and education.