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Gianluca Baio
Gianluca Baio is a Professor of Statistics and Health Economics in the Department of Statistical Science at UCL.
1 November 2019
Prof Baio joined UCL as a post-doc in 2005, just after receiving his PhD from the University of Florence - his hometown, where he also studied for his undergraduate and masters degrees. He decided to come to UCL to work alongside Phil Dawid, a man he describes as "one of my statistical heroes".
His career in statistics came about almost by chance. "When it came to deciding what to study at university I stumbled upon a leaflet advertising the degree in statistical science and I found it interesting. I couldn't have been luckier as I have discovered a great passion for the subject and its applications".
His main area of research is the economic evaluation of health care interventions. He leads the Statistics for Health Economic Evaluation research group within the department of Statistical Science, whose activity revolves around the development and application of Bayesian statistical methodology for health economic evaluation, e.g. cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis. The group works in close collaboration with academics both within UCL and at other institutions, and their activities include a series of seminars aimed at statisticians, health economists and clinicians working in economic evaluations.
He has also done some less mainstream work on modelling to forecast election and political data and is doing some more around the use of polls data. You can hear Gianluca discussing some of this work on the next edition of the UCL MAPS Hypot-enthuse podcast, released on Weds 20th November, where he looks at whether the Eurovision Song Contest is biased.
Having lived in London for 15 years, Gianluca is fond of the city. "I have really enjoyed my time here --- particularly being able to work in the heart of London. Florence is really a small city so moving to London has been a big change and has taken me some time to get used to, although I had lived in the US for a period, while studying for my PhD. What I have always liked about UCL, in addition to its location, is the fact that you can create a large network of interesting/interested people with whom to work and collaborate on projects of all sorts".
Outside of academia, he enjoys reading and music, as well as spending his younger years playing football. "Nowadays I don't really care about it anymore, except that I now coach my 7 year old son's team. Which is almost as much work as what I do at UCL... Still unbeaten in two years. Just saying..."