Yaning Wu

Yaning Wu

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

june 10, 2024: a week in the life

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this week

I DID IT! I shared my first-year PhD work with interdisciplinary researchers at all levels in my department this Wednesday. It was a highly fulfilling experience (despite my going too fast while speaking), and I was lucky enough to receive kind feedback from colleagues and fellow PhDs. Most of the week was taken up by my preparations for, and delivery of, the presentation, but I also spent some time developing my interpretation of my primary analysis, which appears to be constantly changing …

next week

With my first-year presentation out of the way, it’s almost time for me to hunker down and write my first-year report, a more formal assessment of my progress that will form the basis of a viva in September. That means that next week will be filled with writing up … and I hope to report back here with a significant proportion of my analysis chapter completed.

outside the lab

I celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival this Monday with a dozen dumplings and a sticky rice dumpling filled with two jujubes. I’d invite anyone, regardless of cultural background, to join the celebrations every year!

on the reading list

Baker C, Morris N, Tsirikos A, et al. Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: interdisciplinary creative art practice and nature connections. Medical Humanities 2024;50:41-51.

weekly photo

IMG_8121 An Eid Al-Adha feast courtesy of a Bengali friend and colleague :)

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

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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

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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

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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

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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.