I grew up in a small rural village of Hunan Province in China. I went to School of Public Health (now called School of Health Sciences) in Wuhan University in 2007. I got my bachelor’s degree of preventive medicine in 2012, followed by my Ph.D’s study in the Institute of Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Peking University between 2012 and 2017.

Currently, I work as a Lecturer at the Key Laboratory of Molecular Epidemiology of Hunan Province, School of Medicine, Hunan Normal University. I am enjoying my job because it gives me a sense of accomplishment, including researching and teaching. In my opinion, a career in children’s health and providing scientific knowledge on health could benefit people in simple but profound ways.

It comes naturally that I chose a career in Child and Adolescent Health. In my Ph.D study, my supervisors, Prof. Jun Ma and Haijun Wang had great influence on me, both of them have great passion for Maternal and Children’s Health. Their devotion and inspiration in research of child health is always a light for me. In addition, during my undergraduate and graduate training, I did lots of volunteer work, such as voluntary teaching in a poor village of Guizhou Province. These works made me realized that children are so vulnerable to different kinds of health problems but are unable to voice and seek appropriate help for themselves, especially, children in rural areas and the left behind children. Therefore, I am particularly interested in demonstrating the early life determinants of health problems of children, including genetic or environmental factors.

My interests in research began from participating in Chinese National Survey on Students’ Constitution and Health (led by Prof. Jun Ma) and the population study on the effects of BDNF-SH2B1-MAPK pathway genes and dietary behavior on childhood obesity (led by Prof. Haijun Wang). In these projects, I found my interests, developed my doctorate project, and studied the individual and interactive effect between INSIG-SCAP-SREBP pathway gene polymorphisms and lifestyle factors on blood pressure in children. Fortunately, part of the work has been published in this issue of Pediatric Research.

My research experience taught me to find what you are interested in and focus on it. Keep learning, ask questions, discuss with your supervisors and make plans, then go for them.