SciLux podcast – Christophe Ley, associate professor in Applied Statistics

17 January 2023

Statistics, Data Science and Sports

Can statistics predict sports’ results? If algorithms and machine learning might help to forecast scores, Prof. Christophe Ley mainly wants to use data science to reduce sports-related health issues.

Prof. Christophe Ley is associate professor in Applied Statistics at the Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine of the University of Luxembourg, in the Department of Mathematics. He is an applied mathematician working in the field of statistics/data science, with research interests in Statistical Modelling, Machine Learning, Directional Statistics, Stein’s Method and Sport analytics. Prof. Ley’s work is also strongly interdisciplinary-oriented, focusing on medicine, biology, engineering, renewable energies and psychology.

Listen to Prof. Christophe Ley talking about his interdisciplinary research work dealing with statistics, data science and sports.

Statistics meet sports

Technological advances have provided mankind with unprecedented computing power. This has resulted in the creation of devices that allow the collection and storage of increasingly complex and large data sets, which is the so-called big data phenomenon. Traditional tools no longer suffice to correctly interpret, analyse and hence exploit these data. Prof. Christophe Ley’s research aims at providing answers to these needs by developing innovative statistical and machine learning procedures based on new mathematical and computational tools.

In sports medicine and in collaboration with sports scientists, clinicians and athletes form the Luxembourg Institute of Helath (LIH), the Luxembourg Institute of Research
in Orthopedics, Sports Medicine and Science (LIROMS) and the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg (CHL), he intends to develop data-driven tools to estimate the injury risk for professional as well as recreational athletes in order to reduce sports-related health issues.

Developing interdisciplinary research in Luxembourg

Another example of Prof. Ley’s interdisdiplinary work is about structural bioinformatics. He co-supervised a PhD student with researchers from Copenhagen, combining statistics with an emerging paradigm in machine learning – probabilistic programming. He is also currently working on a project with research institutions in India, dealing with wind energy.

This strong taste for interdisciplinary work is one of the many reasons Christophe Ley chose to pursue his career in Luxembourg. In addition to participating in the development of the University of his home country, Prof. Ley highly values collaborative research which is one of several strengths of the research environment in Luxembourg. Indeed, the collaboration between research institutions – and also between academia, industry and government – makes Research Luxembourg a great place where talents can foster excellence in research and innovation.

A podcast to highlight research made in Luxembourg

Research Luxembourg, RTL Today and SciLux have teamed up to launch a new series of podcasts showcasing science in Luxembourg and beyond.

With a new episode every 2 weeks published on RTL Play, ‘SciLux powered by Research Luxembourg’ will showcase research activities and scientific cooperation in the Grand Duchy.

Learn more on the SciLux X Research Luxembourg podcast