Yu is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Economics in the Business School and the Health Economics Research Unit, and an IZA Research Fellow. Yu completed her MSc and PhD in Economics at the University of Warwick.

She is an applied micro-econometrician working in the fields of labour and health economics. She is currently doing research on the social integration of immigrants in the UK, focusing on one of the possible key factors for integration: Language skills. In particular, she uses natural experiments to identify the causal impact of English proficiency on various immigrant outcomes including education, health, and residential clustering outcomes. She is also working on the project on homelessness in Scotland, and the project on the relation between fast-food outlets and adolescent body weights in the UK.

She joined IZA as a Research Affiliate in February 2012 and became a Research Fellow in July 2017.