Marie Michaelides

I am an actuarial researcher with broad interests in statistical modelling for general insurance, with a particular focus on climate risks and the modelling of complex dependence structures.

I hold a Master’s degree in Business Engineering and a Master’s in Actuarial and Financial Engineering from KU Leuven. I started my career as an actuarial consultant for a major financial services firm in Belgium before pursuing a PhD in Mathematics (Actuarial Science) at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), which I completed in 2024. I then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Concordia University in Montréal before joining the Department of Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics at Heriot-Watt University in 2025.

I am a qualified actuary with the Institute of Actuaries in Belgium and I am committed to contributing to both the academic and professional actuarial communities.

My research focuses on developing statistical models to better understand and manage complex risks in insurance. I am particularly interested in how climate risks and extreme events impact insurance portfolios, and in modelling the dependencies that exist across time, space, and different types of risks. I aim to design methods that are both theoretically rigorous and practically useful for the insurance industry. My work is especially relevant to applications in general insurance, including climate-related risks, capital management, and solvency assessment.

The topics I am interested in include: 

• Dependence modelling and copulas
• Climate risks and insurance applications
• Bayesian time series modelling 
• Risk measures and model uncertainty 
• Applications of artificial intelligence in insurance