Yannan is the GVDN Lead Biostatistician. She is also a Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Statistics, and a Senior Biostatistician of the Statistical Consulting Centre (SCC) in the University of Auckland. As a study investigator and principal statistician, she has worked collaboratively with research organisations and pharmaceutical industry on a wide range of national and international projects, providing statistical advice on study design, data monitoring, statistical analysis and reporting, and expert review.
Yannan was elected to the membership of International Statistical Institute (ISI) in 2012, an invited statistical reviewer for medical journals, and is a member of the New Zealand Statistical Association (NZSA). To date she has published 200 peer reviewed journal articles and is a PhD/doctoral accredited supervisor. Her research areas include clinical trials in nutrition and physical activity, alcohol and smoking cessation, diabetes and heart diseases, newborn and pregnant women; cluster randomised trial design; survey design and analysis; national registry and longitudinal studies; self-controlled case series studies; case-control sampling and missing data problems.