Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science

Gamma Iota Sigma, Zeta Chapter (GIS) attended the Gamma Iota Sigma’s 56th Annual Conference, providing the Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science students with an opportunity to connect with members from Gamma Iota Sigma chapters across the country. The three-day conference brought together 700 students from more than 70 colleges and universities nationwide, along with 100+ exhibitors, making it a valuable experience for our students to build connections and explore opportunities within their majors.

The Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science (GSRS) welcomed students to our Fall 2026 Open House!

Students in attendance had the opportunity to connect with GSRS faculty, explore GSRS student organizations, and learn more about degree programs offered in GSRS.

Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make the Fall 2026 Open House a success!

The State Farm Scholars & Career Luncheon is an event that acknowledges State Farm Scholars and presents the amazing career opportunities found at State Farm from corporate division to agency.

Annually, State Farm awards $50,000 to the Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science (GSRS) supporting our students through the State Farm Enrollment scholarship that awards up to $2,000 for Pell eligible students and up to $500 to non-Pell eligible students. Students who are sophomores and juniors who are GSRS majors or pre-majors receive this scholarship.

The State Farm Scholars & Career Luncheon was made possible through a powerful collaboration between the Robinson College of Business Career Advancement Center, the Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science, and State Farm.

⭐Congratulations to the State Farm Scholars!!

Special thanks to State Farm and the State Farm panelists!

• Shannon Trotter - Sales Leader
• Amisa Jones - Talent Management Manager (LDA)
• Galin Vinasco – State Farm Agent, Norcross, GA
• Shanita Drake- Technology Director
• Walter Phillips, Claims Manager

The Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science had an amazing time at the Fall 2026 RCB Majors & Organizations Fair. We came across familiar faces with freshmen pre-majors stopping to say hi, we met students looking to potentially change their major or minor in RMI, and informed the non-GSRS majors about the C.V. Starr Engagement scholarship up to $2,000 for completing one of our AS or RMI 3000 or 4000 level courses. Gamma Iota Sigma, Zeta Chapter (G.I.S.) shined bright sharing their experience as current students in the M.R. Greenberg School.

The Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science(GSRS) welcomed GSRS PhD alum, V.J. Skutt Distinguished Professor, Yijia Lin from the Department of Finance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to the GSRS Seminar Series to present her research examining the cost and benefit tradeoffs of unfreezing defined benefit pension plans through cash balance plans.

Title: The Big Thaw: Unfreeze Defined Benefit Pension with Cash Balance Plans

Abstract: The recent resurgence of defined benefit (DB) pensions through cash balance (CB) plans has sparked discussions and captured the attention of employers, unions, and benefits experts. However, there remains limited understanding of how unfreezing DB pensions impacts a firm. To address this gap, we explore the cost and benefit tradeoffs associated with pension unfreezing using a model calibrated to market data within a stochastic framework. Our analysis reveals that the extent to which restarting DB pensions affects a firm’s total pension cost depends on factors such as pension surplus magnitude, employee salaries, firm financial stability, and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) premiums. In particular, with a high funding surplus and elevated employee salaries, unfreezing a CB plan can yield greater cost efficiency for companies than pension risk transfer, especially in a high interest rate environment. Our findings provide valuable insights for pension sponsors contemplating the reopening of DB pensions through CB plans, which could potentially counteract the current trends in pension de-risking.

The State Farm Scholar and Career Luncheon is a collaboration between the Robinson Career Advancement Center and the Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science. We look forward to this special day honoring State Farm Scholars and State Farm sharing career insights from agency to corporate division.

⭐To reserve your spot to the State Farm Scholar & Career Luncheon, you must rsvp through your Handshake account.

Rsvp here: https://t.gsu.edu/46sS4PB

The Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science (GSRS) alongside Robinson College of Business Career Advancement Center hosted Introduction in RMI-Panel Lunch & Learn. Attendees learned about the world of risk management and insurance directly from industry leaders discussing a day in the life in their roles. GSRS thanks our panelists for an insightful conversation.

Panelists:
Mike Iverson (Oakbridge)
Regional Managing Director

Tawana Hamm (Delta)
Risk Management Specialist

Chelsea Swirsky (Willis Towers Watson)
Senior Director, Retirement/Pension Actuary

The Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science welcomed Bruce A. Palmer Professor Ajay Subramanian to the GSRS Seminar Series to present research co-authored with Carlos Nunez Nunez. The presentation examined how production networks shape firms’ financial decisions, default risk, and the potential for contagion across industries.

Paper Title:
Production Networks, Default Risk and Contagion

Abstract:
We show how an economy’s production network affects firms’ financial decisions, default risks and contagion in a structural framework. We analytically characterize the equilibrium and derive implications for the impacts of network characteristics. A higher network concentration lowers (raises) default probabilities and raises (lowers) leverage for firms in the largest (smallest) industries. Network sparsity lowers leverage and raises default risk on average, but the quantitative effects are heterogeneous across industries and smaller. The U.S. network is resilient to default contagion due to anticipated productivity shocks that allow firms to adjust their leverages. Unanticipated productivity shocks, however, lead to significant default contagion.

The Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science will host our Open House, this month. We look forward to seeing you there, connecting with GSRS students and faculty!

*No rsvp needed but encouraged, stop by to see us on September 30 at 1:15PM.

Today, Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science welcomed Professor Glenn W. Harrison to the GSRS Seminar Series to present research exploring how economists understand and measure risk preferences through observable decision-making.

Paper Title: Models of Risk Preferences, Higher-Order Risk Attitudes and the Value of Insurance.

Abstract
Economists have gained a richer understanding of the structure of risk preferences by defining key concepts using intuitive and directly observable choice tasks. These choice tasks orthogonally define “behavioral reference lottery pairs” that can be used to identify risk preferences reflecting risk aversion, prudence and temperance. We show how to apply these ideas to a wide range of models of risk preference beyond Expected Utility Theory. An immediate corollary is to be able to evaluate the importance of higher-order preferences in many applications that do not meet the exact
requirements of these behavioral reference lottery pairs, and that need characterization of the way agents trade off these preferences. Those cases characterize virtually all of the important applications of risk preferences of all orders. We demonstrate the application of this approach to the valuation of various insurance contracts.