Yaning Wu

Yaning Wu

PhD student | storyteller | 🇨🇳🇺🇸🇪🇬🇰🇪🇬🇧

february 5, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

Published:

this week

NEW DATA ALERT! This week, I received the data I’d requested - good timing. I confirmed my study analysis plans for a few days before opening the dataset and beginning to clean it using the statistical software R. Then, I cleaned up results presentations and interpretations for my systematic review and meta-analysis. Finally, I met with senior colleagues to discuss a possible new collaboration to enhance the application of our blood donor datasets to broader health research questions.

next week

I want to wrap up the first draft of my systematic review and meta-analysis, filling in those X’s, highlighted …’s, and blanks I’ve left on my documents. I also want to complete data cleaning for my primary analysis and begin describing the study population I’m working with. I can’t name the participants, but I’ve likely met a few by coincidence and I’m sure they’re lovely - that’s one way I can already describe them. Finally, I’m hoping to re-organise my life in a way that better prioritises what I care about and leaves me some space to rest. Big ambitions this time round …

outside the lab

I received some friends from “the other place”, who sampled our college food, became couches for Silly the cat, and gifted me a box of very beautiful strawberries. It was an auspicious way to ring in the new year.

on the reading list

Demaine ED, Demaine ML. Every Author as First Author. arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.01393. 2023 Apr 3.

weekly photo

IMG_7088 The chapel at Corpus Christi College.

about me

I’m Yaning (she/her), a PhD candidate in Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge. I am working with colleagues in the Blood and Transplant Research Unit, the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, and NHS Blood and Transplant (England’s national blood service) to improve the safety and efficiency of voluntary whole blood donation. I’m supervised by the amazing Dr Lois Kim and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. This is my blog about my journey through this candidature, starting from nine months before my transfer of status. Please feel free to reach out at yw645 [at] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk!

september 9, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

Published:

this week

I’ve begun implementing some of the feedback from my first-year assessors, which has led to somewhat drastic (though sorely needed) changes to my proposed work. Broadly, though, I’m plowing forward, and am now trying to improve the fit of some models I would like to use for a discrete-event simulation. I also found some small errors in my code for my first primary analysis, so I have been working to correct those and improve that piece of work before I attempt to adapt it for journal submission. Finally, I met with international collaborators and presented a study proposal with short notice, receiving some interesting and useful feedback!

september 2, 2024: a week in the life

1 minute read

Published:

this week

I have some news … it’s unofficial, but I appear to have passed my first-year assessment! There is a good chance that I will be permitted to continue this adventure, albeit with some changes to my project plans. What an honour to have this opportunity to keep moving forward - I will think of this ruling in the days when I am constantly plagued by the inadequacy of my work.

aug 26, 2024: a week in the life

3 minute read

Published:

this week

My mind is blown! It has been a huge week of trying to understand simulation modelling methods, and a few papers that my supervisor recently shared have been instrumental in that process. Luckily, I’m not alone - I have multiple colleagues using those methods. By Saturday (today), I’ve put together a rough draft for a Methods section of a potential thesis chapter or manuscript. I know I’ll rewrite nearly all of that section in months or years, but I’ve seen countless resources advising me to write early! I’ve also been addressing a final round of comments from two co-authors of my systematic review and meta-analysis and am somewhat heartened that this truly appears to be our final round. Finally, I’ve been saturating a printed copy of my first-year report with tiny post-its, which point out all the mistakes I’ve already found in that work, the changes I’ve since made to my study designs, and the over-ambitiousness of the timelines I originally set. My assessment is happening on Thursday, and I hope I’ll be ready …

aug 19, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

Published:

this week

Just on time … I submitted my poster for my Glasgow conference on Monday with a few hours to spare! I resisted the urge to place a tiny illustration of me with my polar bear near my contact details, but we’ll see whether that’ll make it onto the printed version … For the rest of the week, I planned my approach to several primary analyses using our blood donor studies, interrogated my first-year report some more, and made minor revisions to my review manuscript! My working days were a little shorter than they usually are this week as I recovered from a jarring weekend, but I’m okay with my progress.