Feng is a Chair Professor in the School of Economics and Management, the Director of China Center for Insurance and Risk Management, and a Research Fellow of the National Center for Economic Research in Tsinghua University. Prior to that, he was a Professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Industrial Engineering, State Farm Companies Foundation Endowed Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States. Feng also served as the Faculty Lead for the Finance and Insurance Sector at the University of Illinois System’s Discovery Partnership Institute, responsible for promoting and coordinating research collaboration and technology transfer with the State of Illinois and Chicago’s financial industry. Feng also served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Visiting Professors to the Institute of Computing and Mathematical Engineering at Stanford University, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research at the University of New South Wales, Technical University of Munich supported by the Bavarian State Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts, a Distinguished Professor at the College of Finance and Statistics in Hunan University.

Feng currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Risk Sciences, a Co-Editor of North American Actuarial Journal, an Associate Editor or an Editor for several international academic journals including AI and Ethics, Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Annals of Actuarial Science, Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability, International Journal of Financial Engineering, Quantitative Finance and Economics.

Financial Technology

Social Insurance

Actuarial Science

Global Risk Governance

Blockchain Applications in Finance

Risk Governance

Insurance and Actuarial Science

Social Security and Retirement Finance

Financial Technology

He has published over 50 academic papers in leading international journals such as Management Science, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, and Journal of Risk and Insurance, and has authored multiple books, including the recent book Risk-Sharing: From Ancient Rome to Ethereum.

His current research focuses on the following areas:

Risk Governance: The world faces numerous global risks, including natural disasters driven by climate change and public health crises such as pandemics. Effectively mitigating their potential catastrophic impacts through market-based mechanisms and social governance has become a critical issue for global sustainable development. His research examines the design of multi-actor, multi-level market-based risk-sharing mechanisms to address such global risks.

Pension Finance: With the deepening of population aging, societies are confronting challenges such as pension gaps and health risk exposures caused by demographic shifts, investment risks, and longevity risks. His research includes multidimensional assessment of household retirement preparedness, factors influencing retirement shortfalls, and advancing retirement equity in terms of information accessibility, financial literacy, pension system design, and resource distribution.

Social Security and Insurance: His work covers risk-sharing mechanisms within pay-as-you-go systems such as public pension and health insurance, addressing urban-rural disparities, intergenerational equity, parametric reforms, and social security participation and benefits for gig workers. He also studies multi-stakeholder involvement in catastrophe insurance, market failures, and the coordinated development of commercial insurance and social security systems.

Blockchain Finance: He investigates innovative business models in blockchain finance applications, particularly tokenomics mechanisms, including securitized risk-sharing business models, virtual currency staking, delegated voting consensus, and related issues.

Human-Computer Interaction in Financial Decision-Making: As artificial intelligence evolves from a computational tool into a decision-making assistant, it is reshaping the entire process of consumer financial knowledge acquisition, risk perception, and product purchase. His research explores behavioral patterns and mechanisms in how consumers acquire knowledge, transform cognition, and make financial decisions in human-machine interactive environments.

Feng is a passionate advocate for academic-industry partnerships through his involvement at professional organizations and entrepreneurial development. He previously served as Chair of the Research Executive Committee and Chair of the Education & Research Section Council at the Society of Actuaries (SOA). He has led multiple industry development research projects commissioned by the SOA and the Casualty Actuarial Society, and has directed or participated in research on federated learning and privacy protection funded by Intel and Cisco. While in the United States, he was invited by the Illinois House of Representatives Personnel & Pensions Committee to contribute to the design of multiple legislative proposals for pension system reform. He appeared at a public hearing of the Illinois House regarding pension obligation bonds and provided consultation to state representatives.

After returning to China, he has taken on roles including Executive Director of the AI Finance Committee of the Western Returned Scholars Association Canada Chapter, Council Member of the Emergency Management Branch of the Chinese Society of Optimization, Overall Planning and Economic Mathematics, Council Member of the Commercial Insurance Branch of the Chinese Social Security Association, and Academic Committee Member of the Key Laboratory of Disaster Insurance at the National Disaster Reduction Center.

He has been invited on multiple occasions to participate in policy advisory sessions organized by various national ministries, including the Development Strategy and Planning Department and the Employment, Income Distribution and Consumption Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Financial Regulatory Administration, the Pension Insurance Department of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and the Benefit Protection Department of the National Healthcare Security Administration.

2025 Insurance Mathematics and Economics Best Paper Award

2023 Jeffrey Heywood Prize, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

2022 Michael Colla Award for Mathematics Related to Medicine, University of Illinois.

2021 Best Paper Award, ASTIN Colloquium, the International Association of Actuaries.

2020 Best of 2020, Annual Meeting of the Casualty Actuarial Society.

2019 Best Paper Award, Quantitative Methods in Finance, Global Association of Risk Professionals.

2016 Helen Petit Professorial Scholar, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois.

2012 Research Fellow Award, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.