Yaning Wu

Yaning Wu

student storyteller | 🇨🇳🇺🇸🇪🇬🇰🇪🇬🇧

march 4, 2024: a week in the life

1 minute read

Published:

this week

I started running my main analyses this week and tabulating the results - at this point, I can only say that they look interesting :) I then had some ideas sprouting from my ears and am trying to develop some new proposals using existing data. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I am rewriting my systematic review and meta-analysis draft after detailed feedback from my supervisor!

next week

I want to finish a better version of my review and start turning it into a publication-ready manuscript. I also hope to move further with my primary analyses, including making more sense of my findings and how robust they are to certain statistical biases.

outside the lab

I’ve been preparing for and advertising my first ever solo piano recital! Details here :)

on the reading list

Huang Y, Burgoine T, Bishop TRP, Adams J. Assessing the healthiness of menus of all out-of-home food outlets and its socioeconomic patterns in Great Britain. Health & Place. 2024;85:103146.

weekly photo

IMG_7315 New branding for our department’s public-facing events!

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!

november 25, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

Published:

this week

I’ve spent the vast majority of this week breaking and un-breaking code for my simulation modelling project, which was well-aligned with a three-hour stint of TA-ing I took on this Friday for a practical in R coding. I also led a seminar for first-year medical students in appraising epidemiological literature, which I found even more fulfilling than my first try last week. Then, once again, I re-ran some code for my first primary analysis and continued to develop proposals for upcoming projects. Finally, I’m looking forward to presenting an idea for an international collaborative study in mid-December and am preparing slides!

next week

In a few days, I’ll try to compile a proposal in full for a planned project, as well as turn another from a bullet-point outline into proper text. And I’ll continue to break and un-break my code until it runs without stopping. Those are my most important priorities, but I’m also considering developing some new ideas for further analyses of the data I already have … tbd!

november 18, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

Published:

this week

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I drafted a data request for my proposed simulation study, led my first-ever undergraduate supervision meeting, presented my first primary analysis to a multidisciplinary audience of Blood and Transplant Unit researchers, and started running my simulation code using dummy data. Then, on Thursday, I cracked the screen of my work laptop, took a half-day to blunder around and despair, and spent the rest of the day starting a new job as a Research Associate at Kohlrabi, a public health consultancy. It’s a privilege to join a team that clearly likes their greens :)

november 11, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

Published:

this week

It’s been a week of presentations! On Wednesday, I presented findings from my first primary analyses in an intimate setting and had a great conversation with the attendees. On Thursday, I presented to a larger audience, including senior scientists within the Department of Public Health and Primary Care. I’ve also built on my manuscript draft for that primary analysis, which I hope to share with my supervisor soon. I’ve also spent several hours trying to improve on a proposal for a simulation modelling analysis according to comments from my supervisor. Finally, I’ve been working through final admin procedures for our accepted review paper!

november 4, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

Published:

this week

Whew … it’s getting late. It’s almost bedtime and I’m still on my work computer! I would never consider this acceptable normally but have made an exception for this chaotic week. I’ve continued to respond to my supervisor’s comments on my primary analyses, realising that I will need to make substantial changes to the variables used. I’ve also made a dummy dataset that enables me to test my simulation modelling code before I receive the “real” data … though I haven’t done most of that testing yet. And perhaps most importantly, I’ve submitted revisions for our systematic review manuscript, which has now been accepted for publication!!! I hope to share the published paper with you all within the next two weeks.