Yaning Wu

Yaning Wu

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

march 25, 2024: a week in the life

1 minute read

Published:

this week

I continued to refine my first primary analysis this week, looking at how robust my results are to unmeasured confounding (or the influence of unknown variables on the associations I find). I’ve also done a massive clean-up of figures and tables for my review, which has improved their clarity and readability for both my thesis and potential publications. Speaking of publications, I’ve been slowly killing my darlings and refining my results interpretations to meet journal word counts for that review! It might be the hardest editing work I’ve ever done …

next week

I intend to continue refining my work for publication next week. I’ll also explore new methodology to disentangle causal effects of blood donation on health, which is a main focus of my thesis, and examine literature from disparate disciplines to think about how donor-perceived and objectively-assessed health may differ.

outside the lab

I was fortunate enough to participate in the East of England final of the world’s biggest science communication competition, Famelab! You can read about my experience here.

on the reading list

Khan MS, Naidu T, Torres I, Noor MN, Bump JB, Abimbola S. The Lancet and colonialism: Past, present, and future. The Lancet. 2024 Mar;403(10433):1304–8. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(24)00102-8

weekly photo

IMG_7566 I bought some asparagus tips as a weekend treat and was very happy with myself.

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 16, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

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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 9, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

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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.

november 2, 2024: a week in the life

3 minute read

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this week

Time for an apology … I forgot to upload a blog post last week! I have little excuse, except that I had some lovely friends visiting and might have forgotten about this habit amidst the chaos. Anyway, I’m back now, and I come with exciting news! Two reviewers have submitted their comments after I submitted my review manuscript a month ago, and I’ve already begun responding to them. I hope to complete these “minor revisions” (in the journal’s Associate Editor’s words) within a week and move this work closer to publication. During the rest of the week, I’ve been attempting to improve the predictive power of a model I’ve fit within a planned simulation model, revising my thesis draft of my first primary analyses following feedback from my supervisor, conducting a second review of a transfusion-related manuscript, and finalising data access request documents for a near-future (I hope!) project. Things are changing fast, and I’m trying my best to keep up.

october 14, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

Published:

this week

I’M BACK! After a period of annual leave from Oct 3-18, I’ve returned to Cambridge and am currently working from my college. In the few days before my travels and the day and a half since, I submitted our review paper for publication, made a lot of slide decks to share proposed ideas with my supervisor, fleshed out a manuscript version of my first primary analysis, and liaised with the undergraduate students who I’ll be leading seminars for in a few weeks :) I kept an eye on emails while away, so I have little to catch up on on that front. I’m still reeling, though, from a pile of outstanding to-dos.