Rate My Professor Rui Zhou

About Rui

Professor Rui Zhou holds the position of Professor in Actuarial Studies within the Department of Economics at the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Business and Economics. He is the Director of the Centre for Actuarial Studies. Rui Zhou obtained his Ph.D. degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Waterloo. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA). Prior to his current role, he was an Assistant Professor in Actuarial Studies at the University of Manitoba for five years.

His primary research interests encompass longevity risk measurement and management, mortality modelling and forecasting, retirement solutions such as longevity annuities, and weather derivatives. Notable publications authored or co-authored by Rui Zhou include "Economic Pricing of Mortality-Linked Securities: A Tâtonnement Approach" (2013), "Semicoherent Multipopulation Mortality Modeling: The Impact of Smoothing on Fairness and Fair Pricing of Mortality-Linked Securities" (2017), "Pricing Temperature Derivatives with a Filtered Historical Simulation Approach", "Drivers of Mortality Dynamics: Identifying Age/Period/Cohort Components of Historical U.S. Mortality Improvements", "A Multi-Parameter-Level Model for Simulating Future Mortality Scenarios with COVID-Alike Effects" (2022), "Nonlinear Modeling of Mortality Data and Its Implications for Longevity Bond Pricing" (2023), "Beyond Annual Data: Mortality Forecasting with Mixed Frequency Data", and "The Impact of Longevity Annuity Provision on Retirement Income Planning for Canadians: A Modified General Endogenous Grid Method". His scholarly output has received 628 citations and holds an h-index of 13 on Google Scholar.

He has presented his research at various academic venues, including an Actuarial Studies Seminar on "A Multi-parameter-level Model for Simulating Future Mortality Scenarios" at the Australian National University. Rui Zhou's work on improving investor confidence in renewable energy via wind derivatives was featured in university news in 2023. He has also commented on the value of cancel culture insurance in media coverage in 2025. As the designated contact, he supports the University of Melbourne's recognition as a Society of Actuaries Center of Actuarial Excellence since 2015.