On December 12, 2024, the Fudan Institute for Global Public Policy (IGPP) organized the 65th lecture of the Fudan-LSE Lecture Series. Professor Emma McCoy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) delivered a lecture on the theme of Physical Activity through Sustainable Transport Approaches, which was chaired by Yijia Jing, Dean of IGPP.

Professor McCoy is currently the Vice President of the LSE and Professor in the Department of Statistics. She was previously a member of the Royal Society's Advisory Committee for Mathematics Education and is a governor of the Imperial College London Mathematics School. Her research interests mainly focus on the development and application of causal inference methods.

Professor McCoy introduced the topic by sharing her personal cycling experiences in London, which heightened her awareness of the importance of sustainable transportation methods in promoting physical activity. Her research specifically explores how sustainable transportation methods can improve health and reduce stress by promoting physical activity. Professor McCoy highlighted that extracting valuable insights from large datasets, especially reducing bias in observational studies, has become a significant challenge in the field.

Professor McCoy then discussed the concept of counterfactual reasoning with an important question in causal inference: how to infer potential counterfactual outcomes from partially observable data. She emphasized that reasonable assumptions and inference methods are needed for causal reasoning because all counterfactual outcomes cannot be directly observed. She also explored the impact of confounding factors. Finally, Professor McCoy demonstrated how causal inference methods are used to analyze the effects of different modes of transport on stress levels.

On behalf of the IGPP, Professor Jing then presented a gift to Professor McCoy, and the lecture concluded successfully with a group photo.