These governing bodies, and their membership, are described in more detail below.

David is an actuary and Worldwide Partner at Mercer (Australia) Pty Ltd where he is responsible for developing research ideas and thought leadership and contributing to the public debate, as well as being a national practice leader for public sector superannuation. He works closely with many superannuation clients covering a range of actuarial and strategic issues.

His previous appointment was with PricewaterhouseCoopers for 5 years, which followed his roles as the Foundation Professor of Actuarial Studies and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. he has also held academic appointments at Macquarie University, Sydney and the University of Waterloo, Ontario.

In his two decades in academia, he acted as a consultant to a range of financial organisations, in both the private and public sectors, specialising in the superannuation and retirement incomes area. He has spoken and written widely in this area and served on many Government and industry committees. He was an independent Board member of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority from 1998 to 2003 and President of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia in 2000. He was named Actuary of the Year in 1996.

Richard is Professor and Director of the National Centre for Classification in Health at the University of Sydney. The Centre produces ICD-10-AM and the Australian Classification of Health Interventions, and works across a range of health classification and terminology issues. He plays an active role in World Health Organisation work on health and related classifications.

Richard was Director of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia's national health and welfare statistics agency, for 10 years up to January 2006. Previously, he was Deputy Australian Statistician for three years.

In earlier roles, Richard worked in government health and disability agencies, and headed the ACT and the Northern Territory Treasuries. He is a statistician and an actuary, being Australian Actuary of the Year in 2002.

Richard has a Bachelor of Science from Sydney University and a doctorate in statistics from Princeton University.

In the Australia Day Honours List for 2003, Richard was awarded the Public Service Medal in recognition of the commitment he has made to improve national health and welfare data collection and standards.

John is Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia. In that role, John oversees the corporate governance of the Institute and its business units in Education, Practice Development, Governance & Regulation and Public Affairs.  In addition to managing the Institute Secretariat, he has overall responsibility for administration, finance, marketing and staff.

John has more than 20 years’ experience in the financial sector, much of this relating to employee benefits and consulting. John graduated from Macquarie University in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in actuarial studies. He became a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia in 1982.  He also has extensive experience in life insurance and superannuation management, industry associations, regulation and as Government Actuary.

After his early training with AMP, he spent three years in Western Australia as Superannuation Manager and Actuary with responsibility for all corporate superannuation in WA. During the period 1988 to 1991, he was Australian Government Actuary and a member of the executive team of the Insurance and Superannuation Commission.  He then returned to AMP and assumed responsibility for superannuation government relations and public affairs.

In 1996, John became CEO of the Life Investment & Superannuation Association and then helped establish the Investment & Financial Services Association.

John then shifted to consulting, initially with Trowbridge Deloitte and then established the firm, Professional Financial Solutions, with two other actuaries.  PFS grew strongly from 2001 until John left in 2006 and now comprises over 20 consultants, including specialists in regulatory affairs, including licensing, compliance and risk management.

John was a director of the Insurance Industry Superannuation Fund (Finsuper) from 1996 to 2006.

Professor of Actuarial Studies at Macquarie University from 1977 to 2002, John Pollard is a past President of both The Institute of Actuaries of Australia and the Statistical Society of Australia. A Director of Swiss Re Australia Ltd and Swiss Re Life and Health Australia Ltd from 1983 to 2001, he has also been advisor to several of the largest Australian insurance groups.

He has more than 80 publications in refereed journals and has been awarded prizes in the United States of America, Belgium and Australia for his research and writings. He is author/co-author of seven books, of which two have been translated into Chinese, another into Russian, one into Spanish and also into Japanese. Two have been made prescribed reading for the examinations of the Institute of Actuaries (London), the Faculty of Actuaries (Scotland) and the Casualty Actuarial Society (United States of America).

His first degree was in mathematics and mathematical statistics. His PhD dissertation involved the application of mathematical models to the study of human populations. In 2001, he was awarded the Silver Medal of The Institute of Actuaries of Australia, only the third time this medal has been awarded in over 100 years.

• approves research projects and their funding

• ensures best practice research standards and processes are adopted in projects

• assists in sourcing research team members

• monitors progress of the project portfolio

• upholds ARCA's core values in regard to each project

The members of the ARCA Research Committee are:
 

Professor of Actuarial Studies at Macquarie University from 1977 to 2002, John Pollard is a past President of both The Institute of Actuaries of Australia and the Statistical Society of Australia. A Director of Swiss Re Australia Ltd and Swiss Re Life and Health Australia Ltd from 1983 to 2001, he has also been advisor to several of the largest Australian insurance groups.

He has more than 80 publications in refereed journals and has been awarded prizes in the United States of America, Belgium and Australia for his research and writings. He is author/co-author of seven books, of which two have been translated into Chinese, another into Russian, one into Spanish and also into Japanese. Two have been made prescribed reading for the examinations of the Institute of Actuaries (London), the Faculty of Actuaries (Scotland) and the Casualty Actuarial Society (United States of America).

His first degree was in mathematics and mathematical statistics. His PhD dissertation involved the application of mathematical models to the study of human populations. In 2001, he was awarded the Silver Medal of The Institute of Actuaries of Australia, only the third time this medal has been awarded in over 100 years.

David is an actuary and Worldwide Partner at Mercer (Australia) Pty Ltd where he is responsible for developing research ideas and thought leadership and contributing to the public debate, as well as being a national practice leader for public sector superannuation. He works closely with many superannuation clients covering a range of actuarial and strategic issues.

His previous appointment was with PricewaterhouseCoopers for 5 years, which followed his roles as the Foundation Professor of Actuarial Studies and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. he has also held academic appointments at Macquarie University, Sydney and the University of Waterloo, Ontario.

In his two decades in academia, he acted as a consultant to a range of financial organisations, in both the private and public sectors, specialising in the superannuation and retirement incomes area. He has spoken and written widely in this area and served on many Government and industry committees. He was an independent Board member of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority from 1998 to 2003 and President of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia in 2000. He was named Actuary of the Year in 1996.

Richard is Professor and Director of the National Centre for Classification in Health at the University of Sydney. The Centre produces ICD-10-AM and the Australian Classification of Health Interventions, and works across a range of health classification and terminology issues. He plays an active role in World Health Organisation work on health and related classifications.

Richard was Director of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia's national health and welfare statistics agency, for 10 years up to January 2006. Previously, he was Deputy Australian Statistician for three years.

In earlier roles, Richard worked in government health and disability agencies, and headed the ACT and the Northern Territory Treasuries. He is a statistician and an actuary, being Australian Actuary of the Year in 2002.

Richard has a Bachelor of Science from Sydney University and a doctorate in statistics from Princeton University.

In the Australia Day Honours List for 2003, Richard was awarded the Public Service Medal in recognition of the commitment he has made to improve national health and welfare data collection and standards.

Acting Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and Economics, John has served as Professor Economics at the University of New South Wales since 1988. He holds a BA from the University of Sydney, and the MSc and PhD degrees from the University of London.  Past appointments include research and teaching positions at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and at the Australian National University, Canberra. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1992.

Professor Piggott has a long standing interest in issues relating to retirement and pension economics and finance. His publications include more than 80 journal articles and chapters in books, which have appeared in the leading international academic journals as well as in highly cited conference volumes. In addition, he has co-authored two books, both published by Cambridge University Press. The second of these, on mandatory pension saving, was released in late 2001.

For some years now he has had a policy and research interest in the evolving pension reform debate in the Asian region. For the last several years has been working on aging issues with the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, and he recently concluded an evaluation of World Bank assistance on pension reform in the Asian region for the Bank’s Operations Evaluation Department. He was earlier involved in a major project on annuity design for the funded portion of Russia’s pension system. Current external appointments include membership of the Governing Board of the Indian Pension Research Foundation and Scientific Advisor to the Frisch Center for Economic Research, University of Oslo. He is on the editorial board of the new Cambridge journal, The Journal of Pension Economics and Finance.

His university administration includes two periods as Head of the School of Economics (1988-89 and 1997-2002), two terms as the Faculty’s Presiding Member (1992-1997) and more than 3 years as its Associate Dean Research (2002-2005). He has also served as a Director of the UNSW Professorial Superannuation Scheme (1998-2003).

Professor Just is Chair of Health Services Management, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, and Acting Director, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University. He is also a Director of Medibank Private Limited where he is a member of the Audit and Nomination, Remuneration & HR Committees and Chair of the Products, Benefits and Innovation Committee.

For over 16 years, until the end of 1998, he was the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the Southern Health Care Network and its antecedent teaching hospital Monash Medical Centre and CEO of The Queen Victoria Medical Centre, Melbourne.

Just has also held professorial appointments in the Business School and Medical faculty at Monash University and has been a Visiting Fellow at a number of international organisations including the King's Fund, London; Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, Oakland; Boston University and the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Just has published extensively on health policy, organisational change, management development, quality and safety, managing health professionals and management accounting in journals, monographs and textbooks.

Technical Committees:

• comprise persons recognised as having a depth of technical expertise in the project sector; and

• provide a nexus between understanding a project's research requirements and the needs of industry, so as to ensure a project's ongoing relevance.

Technical Committees act as peer reviewers throughout, and following completion of, a project.

Ron is Manager, Research with the Institute of Actuaries of Australia. He has an extensive background, mainly in public sector research and innovation agencies, in research policy, research funding arrangements, applying and commercialising research outputs, and building partnerships to fund research and apply research results. The last of these processes was the subject of his PhD research, in industrial sociology and management theory, at the Centre for Research Policy, University of Wollongong.

Ron’s most recent previous appointment was as Director of the Office of Research and Research Degrees, University of Canberra. Prior to that he worked in both policy-formulation and management / operational roles in a number of agencies in Canberra, including the former Australian Science and Technology Council within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and AUSTRADE. At AUSTRADE he was Executive Director of the small AUSTRADE-sponsored
industry-development company AGRITEC Australia Ltd.

Earlier, for most of the 1980s, Ron was CSIRO’s Senior Adviser (Commercial), where he did much of the groundwork for CSIRO’s development of its relationships with industry and its research-commercialisation strategies, policies and practices. This included establishing and overseeing CSIRO’s commercial advisory / representational company SIROTECH Ltd.

Ron’s original training was in the behavioural sciences, mathematics and statistics, and his early work was in human resources policy and staff performance assessment.