Statistics and mathematics are fundamental to actuarial practice, as they provide the rigorous tools needed to model risk, analyze uncertainty, and ensure the financial stability of insurance companies.

We are proud to announce that two (former) members of our research institute have been honored by the Actuarial Association of Austria (AVÖ) for their academic work:

• 1st Prize: Aleksandar Arandjelovic (Assistant Professor at StatMath) for his doctoral thesis, "Theory of Neural Networks with Applications in Finance, Insurance and Climate-Economy Modelling", supervised by Prof. Uwe Schmock and Prof. Pavel V. Shevchenko.

• 3rd Prize: Verena Brandstetter (former doctoral student at StatMath, now at FMA Austria) for her doctoral thesis, "Deep neural network methods for partial integro-differential equations with applications in finance, insurance and economics", supervised by Prof. Rüdiger Frey.

The award ceremony took place as part of the AVÖ's annual general meeting, and the evaluation criteria include relevance to actuarial practice, scientific level, innovation, and applicability.

We warmly congratulate both awardees on this achievement!