Eric Paul Harding

Most of a decade spent as an editor leaves little visible trace — every feature, department, and special section carries someone else's byline. These are the pages that carried mine: Ten years of Editor's Notes for Contingencies, the American Academy of Actuaries' flagship publication.

• 01
  The Stories Behind the Data

  Contingencies · Sep/Oct 2019

  How poring over baseball box scores as a kid showed me that numbers are pretty much useless without the human story behind the game.
• 02
  A Trashy Tale

  Contingencies · Jan/Feb 2021

  Getting thoroughly humbled by municipal trash dispatch after trying — and failing — to conquer a pandemic-era mountain of cardboard.
• 03
  A Disorder by Any Other Name

  Contingencies · May/Jun 2021

  How fixing one rotting pergola beam led to buying half a hardware store, and what domestic over-tooling reveals about deferred maintenance.
• 04
  Possibilities and Probabilities

  Contingencies · Jul/Aug 2017

  Confessing a poker habit to an audience of professional risk managers to explore why we're actually drawn to uncertainty.
• 05
  Taking the Long View

  Contingencies · May/Jun 2019

  Using pencil marks on a kid’s doorframe to show the awkward friction between day-to-day chaos and 30-year planning horizons.
• 06
  Looking Back, Looking Ahead

  Contingencies · Nov/Dec 2020

  A clear-eyed look at mid-pandemic fatigue and our stubborn human habit of hunting for clean patterns inside a total mess.

Recognized with national EXCEL Awards for feature reporting and visual execution during this run:

• 2015 EXCEL Award for Outstanding Feature Article, “Smoke & Mirrors: Marijuana Use and Life Underwriting”
• 2016 EXCEL Award for Cover Design, “In the Red Zone—Sports and Concussions”
• 2021 EXCEL Award for Outstanding Feature Article, “Realigning LTCI”

Every document that the Academy issued crossed my desk for a content and style edit. Here are a few that were fun to work on.

• 01
  Individual Equity and Social Adequacy in the U.S. Social Security System

  April 2024

  Compares how major Social Security reform proposals balance benefit adequacy, contribution fairness, and long-term solvency.
• 02
  Defining Big Data

  September 2024

  Defines big data for actuarial practice and outlines how actuaries should evaluate, govern, and responsibly use modern data sources in analytics and modeling.
• 03
  Health Benefit Design Innovations for Advancing Health Equity: Removing the Barriers to Successful Implementation

  November 2023

  Explores how employers can use benefit design to reduce health disparities and advance health equity while overcoming implementation, data, and cost challenges.
• 04
  Charting the Course — The Academy at 50

  November 2015

  Chronicles the history of the American Academy of Actuaries and the evolution of the actuarial profession in the United States.