Yu Aoki received an MSc in Economics in 2007 and a PhD in Economics in 2012 at the University of Warwick. Yu joined the University of Aberdeen as an Assistant Professor in Economics in 2012.

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 the effects of the access to fast-food outlets on adolescent body weights.

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