About
Hi — I'm Erik.
I studied maths, spent three years doing physics research, worked as a software engineer for a while, and now I'm an actuary. From the outside that probably looks like I couldn't make my mind up. From the inside it's on purpose: I want to run into as many interesting things as I can, learn as much as possible from each of them, and let ideas from one field feed another. Spreading out like that also makes me antifragile — harder to knock over when one thing goes wrong. Insurance, as it happens, lets me do most of it.
The maths I learned for quantum systems turns out to be uncomfortably good at describing claims. From September I'm also doing an MSc in Actuarial Science and Financial Engineering at KU Leuven, mostly to put proper names to things I'd been doing by instinct.
The curious part
I've never been good at having one interest. Right now the list includes how insurers set reserves, the history of science, Formula 1 data, index funds, note-taking systems, and how to swim in a straight line in open water. They take turns, but none of them really go away.
Which means my side projects follow whatever I'm into at the time. A personal finance app because I wanted an honest look at where my money actually is. A second brain because ideas never turn up when I'm ready for them. And a few hundred quiz questions, because somewhere along the way I became a quizmaster and there's no going back.
The one thing that has stuck is talking about science. It started during my research years, when I ran LuxDoc, the University of Luxembourg's doctoral students' association, and spent more evenings than I can count putting on Science Slams and Three Minute Thesis contests.
These days it's Scientific Chronicles, a newsletter about the people and the dates behind the discoveries, plus an archive of scientific anniversaries that goes with it. I read a lot and can't stop taking notes; a fair amount of that ends up here.
Off the clock
1:30:37
half-marathon PB
70.3
first half Ironman, 20 Sep 2026
17
days to go
3
sports, one of which I can actually do
I'm a competitive triathlete in the sense that I turn up and race, and a triathlete-in-training in the sense that the swim is still an argument I'm losing. Training is the one part of my week I don't try to optimise, which is probably why I like it.
Where I studied
- 2026 —current
MSc Actuarial Science & Financial Engineering
KU Leuven
Putting proper names to things I'd been doing by instinct at work, with a focus on the financial engineering side.
- 2018 — 2021
Doctoral research in Physics — left unfinished
University of Luxembourg
Three years spent looking for faster ways to simulate how molecules move when the usual shortcuts stop working — the molecular Aharonov–Bohm effect. I left before writing it up. There's a short, readable version of the work here. On the side I sat on the board of LuxDoc, the University's doctoral students' association, and ended up running it, which meant organising the Luxembourg Science Slam and the Three Minute Thesis contest.
- 2018
Erasmus exchange
Grenoble INP & Institut Néel
Five months of physics courses at Grenoble INP, then six months at Institut Néel writing my Master's thesis. Comfort zone: successfully left.
- 2016 — 2018
MSc in Mathematics
University of Verona
Numerical analysis, differential geometry and stochastic PDEs. I paid part of my way as a teaching assistant for Analysis II and Time Series Analysis, served a second term as student rep, and helped run FestaScienze again.
- 2018
Summer School in Theoretical Physics
Utrecht University
Thermal and statistical physics, quantum mechanics and electrodynamics. The final project worked out the electric and magnetic fields around a charged particle moving through a conducting medium — the sort of thing that happens in heavy-ion collisions.
- 2018
ECMI Modelling Week
Lappeenranta University
A week that ended in solving the 2D Ising model numerically, both the deterministic way and the random one.
- 2013 — 2016
BSc in Applied Mathematics
University of Verona
Numerical analysis, stochastic processes, econometrics and time series. Student rep, and one of the people who put on FestaScienze.
what the research was actually about, in plain words: a short introduction (PDF)
Say hello
Happy to talk about insurance maths, running, note-taking systems, or why your favourite economics model is wrong. Email is the surest way to reach me.