Rolv Terje Lie is a professor of medical statistics with a particular interest in reproductive health epidemiology and genetics. Lie is also a senior researcher at Centre for Fertility and Health at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

Studies of the genetic epidemiology of birth defects is one of his main areas of interest. Pioneering registry-based studies have been published in NEJM, JAMA and BMJ. A population-based case-control study of oral clefts including DNA-samples from family triads in Norway in collaboration with Dr. Allen Wilcox at NIEHS has so far resulted in more than 40 scientific papers.

Another key topic of research is the complex epidemiology and genetics of pre-eclampsia. Lie has published several papers in major journals that have provided new insights.

Perinatal risk factors for neurodevelopmental disorders including CP is a major area of research. Papers have been published in the highest-ranking medical journals in collaboration with Professor Dag Moster. An ongoing project with support from TMF invesigates newborn's vulnerability to asphyxia ProBND - Predicting and preventing brain damage in newborns | Centre for Translational Research in Epidemiology (TRACE) | UiB. 

Lie has a strong engagement for global reproductive health research. With funding from the NUFU-programme, he helped start a birth registry at the KCMC-hospital in Tanzania, a project that resulted in a high number of publications, 4 PhD-degrees for collaborators from Tanzania and a research platform for the hospital.

Rolv Terje Lie is an honorary member of the Norwegian Epidemiological Society and he received the Falch-prize for excellent leadership in medical research in 2010

Lie teaches a course for students in medicine and dentistry in basic statistical methods with a particular focus on the design and analysis of randomized trials. He reveived a prize for the development of this course from the Medical Faculty in 2020.

Over the years he has developed several applied statistics courses for PhD-students including a course on the analysis of correlated data.

He also teaches in a course on genetic epidemiology and genome-wide association analyses.