Above: the University of Oxford

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Timar Jackson has been named Jamaica’s 2014 Rhodes Scholar.

The 24-year-old Jackson, who will be studying at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom next year, is currently an actuarial analyst at Sagicor Life Jamaica Limited. He is a graduate of the University of the West Indies.

“I hope that through my studies, I will be able to increase our capacity to identify and measure risk that we face, not only financial risk, but also risk of natural disasters and so forth,” he said in a government release. “If we can put a price on it, then we will have a better idea as to what the stakes are and what strategies we need to utilize to mitigate against those risks.”

Jackson was selected out of a final field of nine candidates. His scholarship was announced by Jamaican Governor General Sir Patrick Allen at King’s House last week.

“We have seen a brilliant set of youngsters who have presented themselves, any one of whom could have been selected to be the Rhodes Scholar for 2014,” Allen said.

Jackson plans to pursue a DPhil degree in Mathematical and Computational Finance.