Welcome to The Waterbury Talks, I'm your host, Grant Copeland. Today's conversation is with Dr. Fumiko Hoeft. Dr. Hoeft is the Director for the University of Connecticut Waterbury campus. As a significant voice on healthcare research, she's most known for her groundbreaking work in the fields of neuroscience and dyslexia, and has given a TEDx talk, has spoken at the White House, and has provided a variety of insights to international audiences. Dr. Hoeft is also an educator who maintains professorial appointments at UConn, Stanford University, and the University of California San Francisco. Learn why she came to Waterbury, how she's impacting careers in healthcare here, what she thinks about the public schools, and whether she ever sleeps, as The Waterbury talks with Dr. Fumiko Hoeft. Dr. Hoeft, it's an honor to spend some time with you today, thank you for joining us. Tell us about UConn Waterbury and its connection to the main UConn campus in Storrs, and its role in the Waterbury community. UConn Waterbury, like other campuses across Connecticut, it's the best of both worlds in that we have collaborations with the, big flagship university UConn at Storrs and, we have this small, tight knit community here in Waterbury. we have a relatively small campus with about a thousand or less students. so it gives a nice, cozy atmosphere like a small liberal arts college. But then whenever you need these big resources, whether it's career fair related, career development, or mental health support, those kind of things, we can get support from the Storrs campus and work together. it has the best of both worlds in terms of support system and being able to have something to offer in the local area in Waterbury. In terms of the role of UConn Waterbury in the Waterbury community, I think, we're playing a vital role I feel like we have a very nice symbiotic relationship where we're at the heart of downtown, whether our students go outside, eat in the local area, or whether we organize events and do something, And I hope that we're benefiting also the community by bringing people, having our students here, collaborating together. And of course there's other more programmatic, symbiotic relationships. For example, the hospitals where we have internships and from the hospital's perspective, they want our students to graduate and find work in the local area. I like win-win, low hanging fruit, win-win, and I feel like we have that kind of great relationship with the city. As the Director of UConn Waterbury, tell us about your main responsibilities. in general I see it more as a outward facing work. Of course I supervise all the directors and all the departments, so when there are bigger issues, I step in and we try to resolve it. But I do feel like a lot of my work is around, working with the community. It's a fun job, whether it's a city, whether it's a nonprofit hospital, school district, I get to talk to a lot of people all the time, and it's been a lot of fun. I think the other thing that I really find enjoyable as the Director of UConn Waterbury is to decide on, direction strategic decisions for the campus, whether to grow in what areas. Working in concert with the community, but also with the Storrs campus and other universities around us. it's very rewarding to think about big pictures and trying to make that happen. And I see that as a major role for the campus director. In addition to your role on the UConn Waterbury campus, what other professional appointments do you have? I have a lot of professional, appointments. First, I am Campus Director at UConn Waterbury, but I was originally hired and I still maintain this appointment of, being a professor in Psychological Sciences. That's my main appointment. I was hired also to direct the Brain Imaging Research Center it's a neuroscience service center, that serves UConn faculty members, but also outside universities and others to promote research in the area of neuroscience. So that's my other job that I have. And then I have appointments in several other departments. in the Department of Mathematics I'm a professor there, in Educational Psychology in the School of Neag School of Education. I have an appointment in Computer Science and Engineering. I have appointments in the medical school, in Pediatrics, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry, so those are my appointments at UConn. I also have appointments at University of California, San Francisco. On the other side of the country. I run a lab there. Also, in addition to my research here as a faculty member in Psychology, I'm a member of the Psychiatry Department. I have a lab there and I have an adjunct appointment there still, even though I left in 2018. And then for my alma mater in Japan, I have a faculty appointment at a university called Keio University School of Medicine. where does your story start? Where are you from? I am from Tokyo, Japan. I was born and brought up there many years ago. And what was your upbringing? where did the impetus to explore neuroscience and this level of education and impact in science and in the community come from? I was always interested in becoming an MD, a medical doctor. So from the time that I can remember, I loved reading and hearing about Mother Teresa and Gandhi. And so I always wanted to work in third world countries and become an MD. So I pursued, I went to high school and then I went to medical school in Japan. It's combined between undergraduate and medical school, so it's a sixth year program. So I went straight to medical school. I became an MD. And I did work in nonprofit management. I studied in that area. My thesis was not in lab work where you do biochemistry or genetics. I did work in the nonprofit area and tropical medicine because I really wanted to go to a third world country and then be a physician. I was thinking about public health as well. Masters of Public Health, perhaps down the road. But then as I was doing that, I went through, my psychiatry rotations and I was really fascinated about mental health and, the mind and how the brain works. And I was interested in schizophrenia, depression, and how it varies so much, even though they don't have a stroke or any major insult to their brain. And so that got me very interested in neuroscience and psychiatry. And that's why I went into psychiatry, did my residency, and in addition to internal medicine, emergency medicine, but I did my rotations at Mayo Clinic, came to the States to do, rotations there, and then I went into psychiatry and then I got into neuroscience research. So if I have this right, you did your pre-doctorate at Harvard, your fellowship at Caltech and UCLA, and your post-doctorate at Stanford, each of those being top educational institutions in the world - how have you been able to accumulate all those experiences and translate them into building the curriculum, building the research and the planning as it relates to UConn and UConn Waterbury? During my training, pre-doctoral and residency and post-doctoral clinical fellowships, I've been to many institutions on the east coast of New England, West Coast, and California, some are medical schools, some are non-medical schools. Now I'm in the Department of Psychology as my main appointment at UConn, but I was also at Storrs, and now I'm at Waterbury. The way I see it is - all these experience, I can use little bits and pieces of it and then, live through experience in a way what worked and what didn't work. And UConn is unique in that it's a big R1 university, flagship research intensive university. Carnegie designation is R1. so it's a big public university with heavy research emphasis, which was original reason why I came here. But also these regional campuses or, we don't call them regional anymore. I think in the old days it was called branch campuses and some other names, regional campuses. The current provost likes to call it just campuses. So we are one of the smaller campuses at UConn. But it has this interesting feel of a private university, and then also a big public university like setting. So I think my experience being in various states and various public and private universities has helped me think about what programs might work in these smaller settings in a public university setting and so on. So it's been very interesting and I think the one really nice thing about these smaller campuses is that you get to try a lot of things, and be very nimble. So you can experiment and you can quickly figure out what doesn't work, what does work, and then move on to another. So it gives us a lot of opportunities to try new things without the big weight of a big university that you can only do it once you get consensus from the whole university or the big campus with 30,000 students. How did you arrive at the University of Connecticut? What was it that led you to have the University of Connecticut on your radar? It's interesting, so I was a faculty member at Stanford University in California, then University of California, San Francisco. Both were in medical schools and heavy research focus. When I came to the East Coast, and to the University of Connecticut, almost everyone, when I first arrived, senior leadership, other faculty member students said, why would you move from California? So that was number one. Or why would you move from Stanford University or University of California, San Francisco and come to University of Connecticut? my answer is, I had the opportunity to collaborate with University of Connecticut faculty members through a research project across the country, and we had collaborations, and the experience was fantastic. I felt like these were extremely smart people, very humble people, very collaborative and very friendly, and cared really deeply about their students. And that really struck me and when I was starting out as a faculty member, I was writing research, federal research grants, not getting them and writing a bunch more. And I felt like University Connecticut faculty member were the most collaborative and helpful in terms of providing feedback, even though they weren't gonna get a penny out of this grant, even if I got this grant. And that really stuck with me. And when the opportunity opened up through my collaborator saying there's a faculty position that opened up to lead the Brain Imaging Research Center, can you please apply? I just jumped to the opportunity and applied, and I was fortunate to get it. And so it's really the people, the faculty members, their, intelligence, creativity, care for students, but all these things brought me here. With the scale of the University of Connecticut, of course, there's so many different career pathways and options to explore potential careers for students of all ages. What are some of the career pathways particular to UConn Waterbury? UConn Waterbury's undergraduate program, because the student body is smaller, there's about a thousand students, so we can't have all 115 plus majors that we have at the Storrs campus. But I do feel like there's a lot of programs that are robust and, flexible in terms of their career path. we have a number of business majors. We have human development and family sciences, for example, that allows you to go into early childhood education. They could go into more, social work type work. They can go into education, they can go into medical school, and it prepares them well in all these directions. Psychology is another major and, English American Studies and General Studies, and so there's a number of majors that are quite flexible. one recent one is the Allied Health program and this one prepares our students in a number of areas in the health sciences, whether it's medical school, dental school, administration of the health side, healthcare professionals, or more state jobs and so on in public health. there's a number of opportunities. So we have to pick our battles in terms of what we offer students, but I do feel like a lot of our programs have a lot of potential and flexibility. adding to the four year majors that we offer on our campus, I also wanted to emphasize that they can start off on any of the 115 plus majors, they can take a lot of these for the first year, first two years. A lot of them are now online. That's one great, positive outcome of the pandemic. And those courses are increasing. So you don't really have to leave this region and take a lot of the courses in any of the 115 plus majors and do a lot of it here before you finish it off at Storrs, whether it's engineering or others that you might not have access to for all four years. To switch gears a little bit, in terms of your research, as a neurophysiologist, I imagine you're heavily involved way beyond the teaching, and you've noted some of those endeavors. What are some of the particular areas, things you're trying to find out what really sparks your interest in terms of the research field and the potential things that you can find through your efforts? if I have to, use one keyword word that I'm known for, that a lot of people know me for, it's in the area of the neuroscience of dyslexia. I'm very interested in dyslexia because it's a very prevalent, condition or learning differences. Some people say up to 20% of all students and all children have some kind of reading issues and some symptoms in a wide characteristics of dyslexia. So it's highly prevalent in a way, and you can't really go without saying, oh, my family member or my friend has dyslexia. And I felt like being at medical school was great, doing research in these areas are great, but the most prevalent medical condition is not up to 20%. So I felt like if I do research in this area, it has a large impact and touches the lives of many children and individuals.- and of course, opportunities presented itself when I was doing a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University. So there was an opportunity for me to go into that area. so dyslexias area that I have been passionate about and the neuroscience of it, we were looking at, how their brain works, how they learn. And so I got interested in brain development and how children learn in general. and so this is why I work with school systems, a lot of school districts and teachers, educators a lot. and so it gives me a lot of opportunities to communicate with different kinds of people, not just in the medical field, but also in the education system. That brought me to working with the Department of Education at various states. And so it gave me a lot of opportunities to talk to a number of people. so just neuroscience of dyslexia. I was doing work in the area of developing new theories and trying to figure out the cause of dyslexia and how we can treat it. after several years of doing research in this area,- I was talking to a lot of family members when they bring their children into research, and a lot of families were talking about their emotional impact and self-esteem on their children, and they were worried about even if they learn to read and you can fix the cause in a way that it has- a broad impact onto the individual that a lot of children get depressed, have anxiety, self-esteem issues. Many people believe that there's a large proportion of people incarcerated populations are dyslexic or have learning differences. And so that really got me thinking about how beyond fixing the cause or identifying the cause and the neuroscience, the neurobiology, neurophysiology of it. And this is how I got really interested in compensatory mechanisms, resilience, social-emotional aspects, emotional wellbeing of these children and individuals. So it spread from really the neuroscience of dyslexia to more broadly, learning differences because a lot of people have ADHD or other, social emotional outcome and not just negative outcome, but positive outcomes such as emotional wellbeing and how we can promote that, how we can make children more resilient. So that kind of encompasses a lot of the work that we do. You've delivered countless presentations, published hundreds of articles, served on dozens of boards and committees. Given a TEDx talk, spoken at the White House with that kind of purview, what's your take? What's your perspective on the state of healthcare? the state of healthcare in Connecticut, as well as the United States, many people probably have read newspapers or heard about it in terms of the medical professionals. There's a major shortage in the area. And if you go to the hospital now, you hear a lot about travel nurses or travel professionals. I went to the hospital for treatment, recently and I felt like half the people were traveling from other states. And so there's a clear need and shortage in this area. but I think with these shortages, it brings opportunities in terms of thinking about how we can best provide care to our community, to our patients, to our families. It makes you think about, do we really need six years of education in this area? Should we be more specialized? We need more diverse, healthcare professionals, for example. And that's a clear one that everyone knows already. and so it, it gives us, a moment to pause and think about where we really need to beef up and to support the next generation of healthcare and provide support. On a micro level in, call it Greater Waterbury, the city and the surrounding region -- what's your view of the available resources? Of course, there's two major health systems here and a number of care providers and healthcare options. Is that sizable in comparison to other market areas you've been and what are the opportunities for growth that you here in the Waterbury region? in the city of Waterbury, yes, there are two major healthcare systems, as you said, and you can almost not walk a block without running into a clinic, whether it's a behavioral health clinic or rehab, other kinds and so on. I think it's really in a good way, out of proportion. There's a lot of healthcare related jobs and opportunities here. I think we should leverage that in the city of Waterbury. Of course, my background is in healthcare and I went to medical school so I could be biased. I think there's tremendous opportunities and with the strength of our faculty member and students and programs that we offer at UConn Waterbury, it's a tremendous opportunity. I would really like to leverage that to help Waterbury be a hub for higher ed and also for, healthcare professions. I think the other thing really that Waterbury has to offer is the diversity. If you look at the Waterbury public schools, for example, a large portion of the students are first gen students that could go to college, or racial, and ethnic minorities. Maybe close to 60% are Hispanic, populations and I think up to around 24%, are African American students. So we have a great opportunity to create a pipeline that would come to UConn Waterbury, and in turn these individuals leveraging our majors on our campus could feed into the healthcare systems and clinics and nonprofits in this area. I think it's a great opportunity for our campus, it's a great opportunity for a city in our schools districts, to work closely with them to create this great pipeline. Are there already formal partnerships between UConn Waterbury and local healthcare providers? Yeah, since the Allied Health program has arrived we have been developing and building up internship programs with the Department of Public Health, with the various hospitals and clinics, we are building them up right now and we are in the process of building more. I would love every single student who comes through our program to have some kind of, internship in our community, whether it's healthcare, whether it's business. I would love them to have these kind of opportunities and so we are working on it actively. One area that I'm really focused on is the federal work study program. It is funded by the federal government, as the name suggests. UConn provides a lot of support to match it up so that the hourly wage becomes more competitive to provide students with opportunities to work throughout the two semesters of the year. The nice thing about that one, and not all people know this, is that you can work at a library or info desk on our campus. You can work in a research lab on our campus. You can be a teaching assistant and help develop curriculum. It's a very fantastic educational opportunity outside of the typical class, and you get paid. But also the one area that I really wanna focus on is the internship opportunities. So if we have an agreement with the local businesses, whether it's hospitals, whether it's - in general, it has to be a nonprofit, but then if we have an agreement and a MOU, then the students can work in these, local communities and get paid similarly as they work on campus. So what I'm hoping for is that every single student who is eligible for a federal work study program is to be awarded and then work in the community. Waterbury sits between major markets, Boston and New York being obvious examples, Philadelphia and others. So oftentimes its quality of care may be perceived as a level down. What would you say to people who think that the care in Waterbury and in Connecticut is less than other market areas? the area of Waterbury, I see it as a plus, being in between Boston and New York and other major cities. It's close enough that you can drive and have an appointment and come back the same day. But also in Waterbury, there's great opportunities to receive healthcare, For example, St. Mary's Hospital is one major hospital. They are part of a national healthcare system and so you can receive really high quality care. The other major hospitals, the Waterbury Hospital, and they provide a fantastic high quality healthcare as well. And they're in the process of, being part of the Yale New Haven Healthcare System. So I see it as the best of both worlds. You have close access and close proximity to great healthcare already. That's at the national level, but then also for specialized care that if you can't get it from these two systems, then you can go to Boston, New York, other places where you can get very highly specialized, care. Most people in California or other places have to drive for an hour or two to get those kind of care, that we can get right in the heart of the city. In our exchanges prior to today's conversation, you were kind enough to send over your resume. It's 70 pages and it's categorized by chapters that include sections like edited books, peer reviewed publications, selected abstracts, invited symposia. Do you ever sleep? I do sleep. I like to keep busy, and I like doing different things. it's very interesting that you mention this, but, When I was starting out in my career, everyone told me in research or in clinical care, you have to focus and be specialized in something. And I, in a way, I struggled from that. I was interested in psychiatry, geriatric depression, and electroconvulsive therapy, neurophysiology, neuroscience, dyslexia, and and a lot of people thought I was jumping around and I was never gonna settle in a way. But after being a professional for decades now, I feel like all these efforts come together. For example, in Waterbury, I can help support and communicate with the healthcare systems and help bring the Allied Health program and the hospital, and the clinics together to build internships or expand on it. I can talk to the Waterbury Public Schools and talk to educators because I've done that for over a decade now through my research in dyslexia. And I've gone around the country and the world to give talks in the area and worked with their Department of Education, a number of educators, scientists, and businesses to promote some of our research and talk about our findings and how we can translate that to practice. So I feel like everything is finally coming together and my experience, so it's worked out quite well and I like doing different things and keeping myself busy. Clearly there's a particular work ethic behind what you've accomplished and what you intend to accomplish, but is there also a life philosophy? Are you trying to leave behind something? Is there a larger purpose behind what drives you to accomplish so much? in terms of my philosophy for life, I don't have anything really grand, but what I really do care about and what really drives me every day is having an impact. And I often say that it's one person at a time. so some people think that I might like giving talks to thousands of people because then you can touch thousands of people at a time, and that's rewarding in a different way. But what I really like is, for example, going into the classroom and doing science outreach, and you do it to 200 kids or 20 kids interact with them and they say, now they wanna be a neurosurgeon, or want to go into medical school, or wanna be a scientist. There's nothing more rewarding than you feel like you touched that person's life and could maybe change their trajectory in a positive way. And I think my life was changed through those small but impactful, experiences. And I would like to make a difference. one person at a time. I met one of your sons the other day and we had a nice chat about San Francisco. What do you hope your sons absorb in terms of your parenthood or your work or your accomplishments? what do you hope that they think of Mom, especially seeing your interest and your passion for learning and teaching? So interestingly, my 12 year old, for example, I have a 12 year old and a 14 year old boy, but, they- at least the last several years, they've seen me through the pandemic, working at home, in my sweatpants often, but also busy just talking to people on the phone or through WebEx or Zoom or other means of virtual calls. they thought that I spent a lot of time on the phone, and my job was basically to talk to people and not sleep as much and work on emails and I think the recent opportunities for my son to see me work in person on a campus at a university, I think it was very interesting because end of the day when he shadowed me and helped out, he said that, now I know why you love your job so much. Before that, he used to say, I don't wanna be in academia or a researcher because you're up all the time and you're working all the time. But I think interacting with people, it gives you more energy and he sees the positive aspects of how interactions change people's lives in a very tangible way. And I would really like, my children to see that I enjoy what I do and they should do what they love, and pursue that in their career. And if it's a job that you like, it's really not a job. You don't do it for the money. And of course you need money to survive and some income, but beyond that, it's really about what makes you happy and what, what makes you smile at the end of the day. And I hope they can take that away and pursue their career in that area that they want to. There's a number of cities that have used a blueprint, for lack of a better term, it's called eds and meds. And the idea behind it - Pittsburgh is one city that's notable for this- really building infrastructure and the synergy between higher ed institutions and healthcare systems or healthcare providers, and the symbiosis, the osmosis, and the collaboration that can truly happen between sizable industries like that to transform the fortunes of an entire city or a region. Do you feel like UConn Waterbury can be influential in that type of even esoteric plan for Waterbury in the region? Yes, UConn Waterbury has a tremendous opportunity right now in, being in the heart of Downtown Waterbury with the healthcare systems around it, but also with close proximity to the Waterbury Public Schools and a great established relationship. Waterbury Public Schools is an amazing public school system. I knew it before I knew the city of Waterbury in a way. I had an NSF research grant proposal that I was putting in to create a new PhD program. When I first came to UConn, I started thinking about this, to create a new PhD, program around the neuroscience of learning, and, with a focus on diversity, neurodiversity, and the intersectionality between the two. When I was talking to a number of Neag School of Education faculty members, they said, go to Waterbury Public Schools and then talk to them and then collaborate with them. So it started off as a conversation if we could do this together. And I heard that usually because they get so many requests, they don't say yes to everything, but to my surprise, we were able to get an agreement from them and then to our surprise, because it's really hard to get, we got funded to create this PhD program funded by NSF. We started that last year and we're gonna enter our first cohort to this program. So I knew about Waterbury Public Schools from before. They're known as an amazing, evidence-based progressive public school system, very collaborative in trying to bring in higher ed. I know a lot of the Neag School of Education faculty members can come and work with the Waterbury Public School Systems and Y M C and other programs. they're very progressive and they're really wanting to work with us, which I find it fantastic and it's a great opportunity. So not just in terms of the pipeline development, but also us learning and doing more research and working with them together, creating the pipeline beyond college after college in their careers, in the local area or beyond in the state and the nation. I think it's a great place to focus on, education and healthcare. What are some of your favorite things to do in the Waterbury area? I love walking around the city and then discovering these new buildings and then reading up on it or trying to find anything you can and see where the headquarters went or if it got merged, and it's a different company now. it's quite fun. Zooming out to a very macro point of view of Waterbury - what do you see happening in the city and in the region overall? Is it making strides? We had talked off camera about Waterbury being one of many post-industrial cities who's flipping the chapter, maybe even creating a whole new book in terms of what it is and re-imagining what industries are here and, and how it addresses the needs of its citizenry. So again, with the vast experience that you have internationally and on the other coast of the United States, what's your view of Waterbury and where it's headed? I think there's tremendous opportunity in the city of Waterbury. When I talk to my colleagues and friends you can see it, it's like the glass half full philosophy. So when you see an open storefront or an open vacant building, some people say, oh, it used to be a brass city but I see that as an opportunity. Wow, imagine what could go in here. All we have to do is think about what could possibly go in here and then come up with a vision and strategy to have that implemented. So if the city is completely full with stores and businesses, there's no room to change things because you can't fit anything in. So I see this as a box full of opportunities and it can go in so many different directions. Education and healthcare system is one natural direction, and we can build on that as well. But we can go into, for example, urban agriculture, leveraging UConn, and we've been talking about, for example, bringing an agriculture program and bringing high-tech and urban agriculture. I would personally like to see that because then it could feed our region and our community. So if we have these high-tech, urban agriculture more implemented locally, I think that's a fantastic way to redevelop our city, but you can go in pretty much any direction and I just can't wait to see what will happen to the city in five or 10 years. And I think we're seeing changes already and new stores coming in, people talking about what to put into different buildings and with Post University here, University of Connecticut Waterbury, and then there's a number of state universities, community colleges nearby. I think there's tremendous opportunity to collaborate and build something new, and I just can't wait. So here's your chance to wave the UConn flag. Why would a student look at and ultimately attend UConn Waterbury? since I came to UConn Waterbury I've been thinking about opportunities for UConn Waterbury. there's so many universities nearby, and in the state. Whether it's Yale University, University of Connecticut, these other campuses, at UConn, there's state universities and community colleges that are now partnered up, there's private universities and other kinds of non-traditional, learning opportunities. So if I were a student in this area or in the state of Connecticut and maybe even across the nation, I think UConn Waterbury does have a lot of opportunities for certain type of students and we will have more in the near future, and we have a lot of plans for this. some of the reasons why a student might wanna attend, for example, would be if you want a small liberal arts setting, if you want to get to know the teachers or faculty better, if you want to get to know your peers better, it's a great place. We all know each other mostly by face and name, and you know where to go. also, it's a one stop shop. If you wanted to get student services its one big suite that you go to and you can get all your businesses done. If you go to a big university, it's great, there's tremendous resources, but they might tell you to walk over there and then 30 minutes somewhere else and then to get your email, you go somewhere else. So I feel like if you want a one stop shop and get all your businesses done, you can get it done in very close proximity where everyone knows you very closely. So I see that as one major advantage of our campus. I think also, even though it's a small campus, it has the backup of a large R1 research intensive public university. So there's research opportunities on our campus, but also, throughout the system so you can apply to all these opportunities from study abroad programs, other kind of fellowships that you can take advantage of if you wanted to. you can live from home if you live close by to UConn Waterbury, where you might not be able to if you were trying to commute to the Storrs campus, which is over an hour away every day. So that's another opportunity as well. And I think if you're very interested in working with a community, doing, service, learning, and doing internships, there's tremendous amount of opportunities here. and as I learned when I came here to the city of Waterbury, I can talk to the hospitals. I can go to the city hall, talk to the mayor, I can talk to a number of people and a number of businesses. I can talk to a coffee shop and they'll remember you and know you. and so there's tremendous, opportunities to work with the community So I guess to summarize, it's the best of all worlds. I imagine what you're saying about students at UConn Waterbury is analogous to businesses who'd be looking to either expand in this market or come to this market. Why should someone bring their interests to the city of Waterbury? The city of Waterbury it's a great place with a lot of opportunity right now. whether it's space and you're looking for buildings, whether it's bringing in new kind of manufacturing or industry, whether it's in the healthcare systems and something related to that, whether it's digital health-type technology or whether it's equipment or others, because there's so many needs in hospitals and clinics nearby, there's tremendous opportunities. And because we work so closely with the hospitals, with other universities, with the K to 12, with the city, I think it's a great place to be because you have access right there. Everyone's really friendly. We wanna work, together. And honestly, I haven't been to, any other city that is this friendly and you can get work done. I felt like it's been extremely productive since I've been here and I would really wanna see more businesses come here and do the same. Dr. Hoeft, it's been a pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks very much. Listen to the full series from The Waterbury Talks, and learn more about UConn Waterbury, Waterbury's educational depth and healthcare excellence, and all the city offers, at thewaterbury.com