Q&A with Xiaotao Wang

What factors interested you to start working with your mentor, Dr. Feng Yue?

Back in 2018 when I searched for postdoctoral positions, to evaluate the contributions/impact of each lab/PI in the field of 3D genomics, I built a collaboration network using publication records from Web of Science. Each node in this network represented a PI/lab, and each edge represented the co-authorship relationship between two PIs. The node color and size encoded the number of publications and the number of citations, respectively, and the edge width encoded the number of co-authored works. Based on this network, I was able to rank labs/PIs by their centrality in the network, total citations, and total number publications. Dr. Yue was ranked top 20 in the world. In addition to the network features, I was also attracted by innovative computational methods developed by Dr. Yue’s lab, such as HiCplus and HiCRep.

I really learned a lot from my work experiences with Dr. Yue. Instead of a supervisor, Dr. Yue is more like an older brother or friend to me. He is an efficient person. I learn from him how to manage time, and how to cut losses in the beginning. He is an optimistic person, and often helps me out when I face troubles in my projects. Additionally, Dr. Yue often asks the lab members to give a brief presentation on their project, and he often emphasizes the importance of oral presentation: "A presentation is an opportunity for you to think about your projects and important questions in the field. Can you summarize your project or a paper or whatever in three sentences? If you can’t, then you don’t really understand it." In the past a few years, I have been keeping this in mind, and that helps me read papers critically and also find the right path in my own project more quickly.