The N.E.T. Program Award Committee is honored to announce PhD candidate Caoyuan Niu as this year’s recipient of the N.E.T. Award for Academic Excellence. “I’m very proud about this, Niu comments, “Getting a commendation for your project demonstrates that your work is doing well, and the N.E.T. Award application process and presentation helped me to hone my project and improve my presentation skills in English.”
Caoyuan Niu is pursuing his PhD study in Applied Psychology through N.E.T. program, under the mentorship of Pekka Santtila, Professor of Psychology at NYU Shanghai. As a member of the Human Sexuality Lab, his current work, "High-intensity interval training (HIIT) and slow breathing interventions alleviate premature ejaculation (PE) symptoms" recently published in the journal International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, focuses on the possibility of using intensive physical exercise as a treatment of premature ejaculation (PE).
Caoyuan Niu is drawn to his work from a desire to help individuals suffering from sexual dysfunction and in so doing, gain a better understanding of its causes. “The topic of sexual dysfunction is so sensitive - and many people don’t want to talk about it. I thought that my work on this project could help a lot of people with this issue and also potentially help those suffering to not feel shame about it, but, instead, try to find a solution.” The research, based on the idea that men with PE may have an overactive sympathetic nervous system, successfully found that interventions of extremely intensive physical exercise (so called HIITs) made a positive impact, probably through a calming effect on the nervous system.
Throughout his PhD, Caoyuan felt supported and encouraged by Professor Santtila. “I feel so grateful to have so much communication with Pekka. He’s a really great professor and he’s always open to discuss the project, life, and career plan. He’s my supervisor, but he’s almost like a big brother to me.” Working with Professor Santtila has brought important lessons in method and approach to scientific research but also provided a lesson in persistence. “Our job is full of challenges and questions,” Niu says. When facing a challenging problem and negative emotions, “you can choose to go further into the negative emotion or you can choose to recognize it as a negative emotion and do something to lessen its effect. I learned an important lesson from my work: Don’t look back. Focus on the moment and what the next problem is that you need to solve.”
As a member of the N.E.T. community, Niu has also benefited from the feedback and support of his fellow students and professors even outside of his department. For Niu, community events at N.E.T. were “open ear” opportunities for students to interact with a wide audience of fellow researchers. “The mixed student and staff events are great opportunities to have coffee or lunch, to get together, and to see what other students are currently working on,” Niu says, adding, “even though you might have different research questions, they can provide a totally different solution or hypothesis to your research question.” According to Niu, the resources N.E.T. provided were also invaluable for solving tough problems and augmented a rich, and encouraging community of committed problem solvers.
The N.E.T. Program Award Committee commend the hard work and determination that Caoyuan Niu has demonstrated as a student and wish to encourage the continued success of his research.