Yaning Wu

Yaning Wu

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

june 17, 2024: a week in the life

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this week

FREE PIZZA! Yes, there was free pizza when I presented my (non-PhD) work with colleagues part of the charity MedSupplyDrive UK at one of our newest campus buildings this week. And in the office, I continued plugging away with my primary analysis, which I had intended to finish writing up this week but which has grown in unexpected ways (and will therefore need some more time to finish … ). On the bright side, I am making small but fascinating steps forward in developing other ideas using the data I currently have, as well as proposing work using data that I hope to apply to access in the next few months. My most urgent task, though, has been augmenting some analyses for my systematic review and meta-analysis according to the feedback of senior colleagues, which I hope to submit to a journal soon.

next week

I’ve set myself deadlines in the beginning of July to (a) send off a revised version of my review manuscript to our authorship team and (b) send off a rough draft of my first primary analysis to my supervisor, so I’ll continue to hone in on those mammoth works in the coming week. On the side, I’ll be forming and developing several ideas (some of them outlandish).

outside the lab

I had the privilege of welcoming some Masters friends to Cambridge to try a gorgeous new restaurant in town :) I’ll need to improve my Hindi so that I can read their signage and bathroom doors next time.

on the reading list

Dhanasekara CS, Ancona D, Cortes L, Hu A, Rimu AH, Robohm-Leavitt C, Payne D, Wakefield SM, Mastergeorge AM, Kahathuduwa CN. Association Between Autism Spectrum Disorders and Cardiometabolic Diseases: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatr. 2023 Mar 1;177(3):248-257.

weekly photo

image Chatting with fellow PhD student Abel Walekhwa about my poster this Wednesday!

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

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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

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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

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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.