At I.VW-HSG, a total of three new assistant professors began their work on August 1, 2022. We warmly welcome all three researchers to the University of St.Gallen and introduce them in more detail below:
Markus Huggenberger is an Assistant Professor of Risk Management and Insurance at the University of St. Gallen (HSG). Before joining HSG, Markus worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Mannheim, where he also obtained his doctoral degree. Markus holds diplomas in Business Administration and Mathematics. His research interests include quantitative risk management, insurance, and asset pricing. The work of Markus explores new techniques for measuring, managing, and pricing the risk of extreme events. Furthermore, Markus investigates the benefits of risk pooling for the policyholders of insurance companies and the design of solvency regulation.
Despoina Makariou is an Assistant Professor of Risk Management and Insurance at the University of St. Gallen (HSG). She has been a researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) at the Department of Statistics and the Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method. She has been awarded with a PhD in Statistics at the LSE for the development and application of statistical learning methods in insurance and finance and a MSc in Insurance and Risk Management at the Bayes (former Cass) Business School in London. She has been granted scholarships on grounds of academic excellence and research potential. She holds an Advanced Chartered Insurance Institute Diploma from the Chartered Insurance Institute in London and she has industry experience at the London Insurance Market in the areas of catastrophe risk modelling, and pricing of (re)insurance and alternative risk transfer products. Her research interests lie on extreme events (natural and man-made) and their pricing in an alternative risk transfer, and insurance context, climate finance, and decision making under uncertainty.
Manuel Rach is an Assistant Professor of Risk Management and Insurance at the University of St. Gallen (HSG). Before working as a postdoc at the Institute of Insurance Sciences at the University of Ulm, he received his doctorate summa cum laude in economics (Dr. rer. pol.) at the University of Ulm under the supervision of Professor An Chen. Manuel holds degrees in Mathematics and Management. He has received various awards, e.g. the UUG Prize (“Promotionspreis der Ulmer Universitätsgesellschaften”), the “FPSB Deutschland Wissenschaftspreis” and a “Berliner Preis für Versicherungswissenschaften”. His research focus is in the area of insurance mathematics and economics, risk management and finance. Manuel’s research primarily contributes to the topics of optimal retirement planning, innovative retirement products, optimal asset allocation and risk sharing. His research relies on pure and applied mathematics, economics, finance and computer science.
Great to have all three of you on board!