Yaning Wu

Yaning Wu

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

july 15, 2024: a week in the life

2 minute read

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!

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

1 minute read

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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

3 minute read

Published:

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

2 minute read

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.