PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Christophe Ley

Christophe Ley is a statistician who develops machine-learning methods for applied prediction. In 2008, he and Yvik Swan began a mathematics summer school as he worked toward a PhD, which he completed in 2010 at the University of Brussels. After his doctorate, he served at Belgium’s FNRS, received a statistics thesis prize in 2014, and became an assistant professor at Ghent in 2015. A 2019 paper used a hybrid random forest for soccer forecasts; in 2024, he shared the Bernoulli Prize for a survey on Stein’s method and coauthored a 2025 paper on Statistically Enhanced Learning. As of October 2026, he is Chair of Applied Statistics in Actuarial Sciences at the University of Luxembourg and co-founder of GrewIA, which provides artificial intelligence and data-science training and consulting.

Now at
University of Luxembourg and GrewIA
Works
262
Citations
7,750
h-index
29
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2008–2010

    A PhD and a summer school

    While finishing his first PhD year in 2008, he proposes extra mathematics courses for first-year students. Yvik Swan joins him, and the first summer school draws three students. He earns a doctorate at the University of Brussels in 2010.

  2. By 2015

    The FNRS and a thesis prize

    After his PhD, he works as a chargé de recherche for Belgium’s National Fund for Scientific Research at the Université libre de Bruxelles until 2015. In 2014, he receives the Marie-Jeanne Laurent-Duhamel Prize for the best PhD thesis in statistics among French-speaking universities.

  3. 2015–2019

    Assistant professor at Ghent

    In 2015, he becomes an assistant professor of mathematical statistics at Ghent University. In 2019, he coauthors a paper that uses a hybrid random forest to predict soccer matches in international tournaments.

  4. 2021

    Joining the University of Luxembourg

    He joins the University of Luxembourg as an associate professor in 2021.

  5. 2024

    A Bernoulli Prize for Stein’s method

    He shares the 2024 Bernoulli Prize with Gesine Reinert and Yvik Swan for their 2017 survey on Stein’s method. The University of Luxembourg gives him a Teaching Award in 2024.

  6. 2025

    Statistically Enhanced Learning

    In 2025, he coauthors the paper “Boosting any learning algorithm with Statistically Enhanced Learning,” which formalizes a feature-engineering framework for machine learning.

  7. As of October 2026

    Chair and GrewIA co-founder

    As of October 2026, he is Chair of Applied Statistics in Actuarial Sciences at the University of Luxembourg and a co-founder of GrewIA. The company offers training and consulting in artificial intelligence and data science.

Career

  1. Since 2021University of LuxembourgAssociate professor
  2. NowGrewIACo-founder
  3. Until 2015National Fund for Scientific ResearchChargé de recherche
  4. 2015–2019Ghent UniversityAssistant professor of mathematical statistics
  5. 2009–2016Université Libre de Bruxelles

Education

  1. 2010Free University of BrusselsDoctorate

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Detecting outliers: Do not use standard deviation around the mean, use absolute deviation around the median2013 · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 4,120 citations
  2. Detecting multivariate outliers: Use a robust variant of the Mahalanobis distance2017 · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 504 citations
  3. Machine learning methods in sport injury prediction and prevention: a systematic review2021 · Journal of Experimental Orthopaedics · 341 citations
  4. How to Classify, Detect, and Manage Univariate and Multivariate Outliers, With Emphasis on Pre-Registration2019 · International Review of Social Psychology · 297 citations
  5. Modern Directional Statistics2017 · Chapman & Hall/CRC eBooks · 288 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

  1. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers rose from 2% to 32%Includes University of Luxembourg. We estimate where leading AI researchers worked when their most-cited papers appeared. The company share rose from 2% in 1975–1979 to 32% in 2020–2024.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Ghent University. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.
  3. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  4. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Christophe Ley yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. BSSM - 2008 bssm.ulb.ac.be. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Comprendre la crise bancaire et prévoir les séismes grâce aux statistiques science.lu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Christophe Ley - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. ICSTA 2026: Statistical Conference 2026.icsta.net. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Christophe Ley | UGent.AI ai.ugent.be. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Bernoulli Prize for an Outstanding Survey Article in Probability or Statistics mail.bernoullisociety.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. Boosting any learning algorithm with Statistically Enhanced Learning | Scientific Reports nature.com. Checked 19 October 2026.