AIG, South Carolina’s Clemson University to Develop Risk & Analytics Center

American International Group, Inc. has announced an initial $4 million investment with Clemson University to develop a risk engineering and analytics center and to establish the Robert Benmosche Endowed Professorship in Risk Engineering and Systems Analytics, in honor of the company’s former president and chief executive officer.

The center, which will be based on Clemson’s South Carolina campus, will expand AIG’s engineering capabilities, complementing the company’s three-year investment in hiring 500 risk engineers and building an engineering and analytics center of excellence in Bangalore, India. AIG and Clemson will continue to explore ways to expand their partnership and collaboration.

The endowed professorship will develop curriculum and educational programs in the field of risk engineering and analytics, cultivate scientific investigation and research, recruit faculty, and create marketable technologies that advance the field.

The partnership will draw on Clemson’s engineering and research capabilities as well as AIG’s data and risk services. The center will aim to enhance the understanding of risk and ways to mitigate it, according to the company. Its mission will be to create a next-generation workforce skilled in risk engineering and systems analytics, develop technology-based tools to mitigate risk exposure, and facilitate the use of big data to make critical decisions.

According to John Doyle, chief executive officer, Commercial Insurance, AIG, the endowment professorship honors Benmosche, “who recognized early the tremendous value an offer clients through engineering and analytics.”

Key areas of research for the risk engineering and analytics center will include:

• Improving cybersecurity to make systems less vulnerable to natural and manmade disasters
• Catastrophe modeling
• Supply chain and logistics risk
• Loss modeling and tool development
• Dynamic pricing models for emerging countries
• Predictive risk modeling
• A coastal resilience initiative focused on risks from hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters
• Enhanced capacity to analyze unstructured data to benchmark frequent loss events and causes

Clemson will provide loss-prevention training with real-world and virtual reality-based exercises. The center will train analysts to join members of AIG’s loss-prevention team, with a special emphasis on understanding risks and how best to prevent and mitigate them.

In addition, online curricula will be created offering graduate certificates in risk engineering, systems analytics, catastrophe modeling, and enterprise risk management. Courses will include decision-making under uncertainty, performance assessment of deteriorating systems, and post-disaster response and recovery. The certificates can be combined to meet requirements for a master’s degree now under development.

“We are pleased to team with AIG,” Clemson President James P. Clements said. “We have the opportunity to play a leadership role in research and education that can save lives and property. This important work will directly benefit multiple stakeholders, including Clemson’s students and faculty and AIG’s clients.”

Dr. James Martin, the center’s director and chair of Clemson’s Glenn Department of Civil Engineering, said that AIG will benefit from the school’s intellectual capital, faculty, and supercomputing power of its Palmetto Cluster computer.