Yaning Wu

Yaning Wu

student storyteller | 🇨🇳🇺🇸🇪🇬🇰🇪🇬🇧

july 15, 2024: a week in the life

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Published:

this week

One of my earliest completed tasks this past Monday was to format the title page of my first-year report … how productive. Anyway, I managed to finish the actual content of that report throughout the week and sent it off to my supervisor on Friday! It’s pretty mammoth, and my next steps will be to think of questions that my assessors might ask after reading that work. I also spent the week outlining my poster for my Glasgow conference in September, which has already gone through several (unsightly) iterations - at least the Background and Methods sections are on their way to being complete. Alongside that, I’ve been trying to learn more about the methods I’m hoping to use for a simulation modelling study in the coming months, which are still causing me great confusion, but I’m optimistic that the outputs of that modelling will be worth the tedium. Finally, I’m proud to announce that I completed my first attempt at a peer review following an invitation by a senior colleague in the transfusion medicine space! I’ll work with my supervisor to refine my review before submitting it next week. What a privilege to engage with wider academic community :)

next week

My work next week depends on the feedback of many others, so I’ll stay relatively flexible for now. I do intend to refine my poster and my first-year report, as well as some proposals for future studies.

outside the lab

I had the delight of giving a college tour to some young people as a volunteer student ambassador during the week! The kids are alright.

on the reading list

Batty GD, Gale CR, Kivimäki M, Deary IJ, Bell S. Comparison of risk factor associations in UK Biobank against representative, general population based studies with conventional response rates: prospective cohort study and individual participant meta-analysis. BMJ. 2020 Feb 12;368:m131.

weekly photo

image Sleepy cows near my house.

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

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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

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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

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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 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.