Behrend Talks: A Penn State Podcast

A productive partnership for women's health, with Dr. Will Walker

• Penn State Behrend • Season 8 • Episode 3

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Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Dr. Will Walker, director of the college's Women's Health Innovation and Science Translational Lab, about how Behrend's role in the MWRI-Erie initiative is helping to benefit medical research, undergraduate learning experiences, and the broader Erie community. Originally recorded on November 14, 2025.

Ralph Ford:

I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend, and you are listening to Behrend Talks. My guest today is Dr. Will Walker, Director of the Women's Health Innovation and Science Translational Lab, which we often refer to just as the WHIST Lab here at Penn State Behrend. So welcome to the show, Will.

Will Walker:

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Ralph Ford:

Well, we're going to have a great conversation today. I'm going to run through some of the background. You know, the WHIST lab is part of the Women's Health Initiative here at Penn State Behrend. Came out of this partnership that created a lot of community splash about five, six years ago. I think it was actually 2019 when we started this endeavor. And at that point, we announced at that time $26 million of investment. It's grown. Behrend serves as what we call the academic research partner working here with Magee Women's Research Institute, which is well known, and we're going to talk a lot about that. We've raised some funds to create a nice endowment that supports the work that you're doing, and you started here this summer. And I'm going to just keep going, if you don't mind, Will, for a moment and embarrass you with all the great things you've done in your career. So our audience knows you are a molecular biologist and former associate professor in the Department of Obstetric Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Will previously taught at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard Medical School. You hold a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Texas, an executive MBA from the University of Pittsburgh's Katz School of Business, and you went to the University of North Carolina for your undergraduate degree, did postgraduate work at Harvard. I hope that that's uh, you know, just a flavor of what you've done, I know, and your research is focused on reproductive health. And uh again, you joined us here this summer. Welcome here. I've said a mouthful. Uh, tell us a bit about how did you end up here at uh Penn State Behrend Will.

Will Walker:

Well, thank you very much for the kind introduction. So I learned about the WHIST lab uh here through colleagues at Magee Women's Research Institute, or I'll just say MWRI or Magee from now on. And they said that there was a great opportunity here, and I enjoy mentoring. And so I thought, well, here I can go, I can mentor some younger faculty here, undergraduate students, and still continue my research. And it seemed for me it was a win-win situation.

Ralph Ford:

You started working with our faculty a few years ago, so it wasn't like you were a stranger. Like there was a period where you have been going back and forth and interacting with our students for some time.

Will Walker:

Right. That's that's one of the uh connections that I had made when I was in Pittsburgh. There's seed grants that Magee helps Behrend with and provides startup money, small amounts of money to perform research projects that will hopefully lead to larger grant proposals and support those proposals. And so I was associated with introducing those seed grants or or managing those seed grants here with at Behrend. So the seeding worked, it sounds like yes. The seed was planted.

Ralph Ford:

Well, let's go back just a little bit because I mean you've had a really you know long career at Magee Women's Research Institute, and I'll start to abbreviate that as well. And we're you know working on a lot of research. So why don't you talk us through a little bit about what was it, you know, what drew you to this field? How did you end up there? What were the interesting work that you were doing at Magee Women's Research Institute?

Will Walker:

Well, I was drawn to MWRI by uh collaboration that I had was working with another investigator there, and uh he asked for my help. We uh wrote a paper together, and that was when I was doing my research at Harvard at Mass General Hospital. And uh so that project worked. I guess I helped him, and so he put in a good word for me so that I would be hired at University of Pittsburgh. And from there I moved over to Magee uh a few years later, and it's I've been in Magee for 10, 15 years, and it's it's been a really good experience. It's a great institution with top-notch researchers and great facilities, and uh we're really lucky here at Behrend that we can continue that collaboration with Magee.

Ralph Ford:

Tell us about the significance of Magee Women's Research Institute. Wasn't it like the first in the world that was this created specifically focused on women's health?

Will Walker:

Well, that's probably true, and I should know that. But it is one of the always number one or number two in women's health and reproduction issues in the country of all at all universities. Wow.

Ralph Ford:

So could you give us a flavor? Like what are the different types of research that they conduct there, and how does this translate into the lives of women on a daily basis or how into the future?

Will Walker:

Yeah, so Magee is a unique place. What we have is you have clinical research going on at the same time, basic research is happening. So we have the um basic researchers that never leave the lab, and that that but they're still collaborating with clinical researchers that are across the street at the hospital, at the Magee Women's Hospital. And so it's this collaboration and this cooperativity and complementarity uh that makes Magee really so strong because you can have the clinical researchers suggesting ideas to the basic researchers and the basic researchers providing the information that the clinical researchers need to improve their health care.

Ralph Ford:

I mean, that it looks to me like an ideal situation and one that you don't have everywhere in the world.

Will Walker:

No, it's it's it's one of two or three or four places like that.

Ralph Ford:

Wow. So what do you you know, when you were there, if you think about it, like what were some of the you know most memorable things that you worked on or things you're really proud of that came out of your work at Magee Women's?

Will Walker:

Okay, I guess the project that I'm most proud of is a project that helped us understand how testosterone works. Testosterone is a hormone, it's the male hormone, and gives men their manly ways. But what I found there was that how testosterone, it's usually thought to only regulate gene expression. So genes will become proteins and the proteins will perform functions. And and and that was all it was thought to do, but I found that not only that, but testosterone will directly alter proteins and cells and activate them so that they'll perform other functions, and that these functions are actually essential for male fertility. So it's this second function of testosterone that I found that was essential for fertility and gave us a whole new way to think about how sperm are produced.

Ralph Ford:

And then like this sort of work is uh funded. How is it funded? I mean, how does the whole operation work when you're there?

Will Walker:

Well, when the um government is functioning.

Ralph Ford:

Yep. We won't comment on that. It started again, by the way.

Will Walker:

When the government is functioning, then a lot of that work was supported by NIH grants. Yeah. NIH money. And that's very difficult to get. Yeah, it's highly competitive. Let me just say that. So and at this moment, with the situation the way it is, perhaps five percent of all grants that are submitted are being funded.

Ralph Ford:

Yeah, wow. It's uh well, we're lucky to have you here. So then, you know, talk us through why did uh Magee Women's decide they wanted to come to your EPA and build this connection? I mean, uh, what was attractive to them?

Will Walker:

Well, UPMC and Magee Women's, they are became associated here with Hamot Hospital. They have a birthing center there, they have women's health initiative there, and they also are performing clinical trials with the help of people here in the in the community. And so with all that, they I think Magee realized that they needed a real academic partner to go along with those clinical studies. And that's what drew them to Behrend. And it's been a really nice collaboration, and we hope to grow it even more soon.

Ralph Ford:

Yeah, and you know, I was part of that, so I'm not gonna act like I'm ignorant of this in that interview. And uh it really was, you know, they you know, your CEO Mike Yannick, and others reached out and said there are a number of reasons we've got a good foothold here in Erie, Pennsylvania. Turns out there are a lot of families that stay here for multi-generation, so that allows you to do a multi-generation study. I mean, you might have a grandmother, a mother, a daughter all here that you can track their health outcomes.

Will Walker:

Right. And so that's so important. Understanding the family dynamics and having the ability to create a family tree, not only to create it, but to have it in your hand that you can work with the people. And so it makes genetic studies easier and you can more easily predict how people might get affected by various diseases. So it's a real positive for the clinicians and how they can help with their with their care.

Ralph Ford:

Well, we've you know, I'm gonna switch back a little bit to the WHIST lab and what's going on here on campus. So that initiative was announced. We've had some previous guests on here, we've talked about that wonderful partnership. I just love, you know, walking up into the lab, showing visitors what's going on. We've got two research spaces here on campus, or maybe a research and a teaching space, and I'm going to name them both because they are named labs. One is the Janice Hill Biomedical and Translational Research Lab, and the other is the Christine E. Shewfelt Advanced Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Teaching Lab. So I'd love if you could talk us through each of those two spaces. One's right here in the heart of campus, the other one's up in our tech park, Knowledge Park. And uh how do they work and how do they support this whole initiative?

Will Walker:

Well, uh, let me talk first about the teaching lab. And so I had the opportunity recently, unexpected opportunity to teach some labs in that space and teach undergraduates our 400-level laboratory class. And um, so that is a really strong, well-equipped lab with everything the students need, well, almost everything the students need, to perform real life experiments like anyone would do in a biomedical laboratory, say at Magee or anything. So they can they have get this great experience, hands-on experience, for how to perform these experiments and how to learn how to be scientists and research scientists. And so um, I say they don't have everything because often we have to bring down a little of this or a little of that from the Janice Hill lab just to supplement what's down there, and that's fine. Uh, and so the Janice Hill Lab is what I would call our major research lab. And in that lab, we actually have now, including my small lab, three labs. And we've got two junior faculty up there with their technicians, and and we've also got seven undergraduate students now working in a lab, and and uh we're probably will increase by two or three more. And uh so that's where the basic research is being done here. Um we can talk about that at length, but that's the um two labs that you were spoke about.

Ralph Ford:

Well, first, appreciate you jumping right in and teaching labs. I think it's all part of the experience. I think that's what makes academia so much fun is you can do research, you can be teaching, you can interact with the students.

Will Walker:

I had the greatest time teaching those labs and interacting with the students. A lot of fun. A lot of fun.

Ralph Ford:

So, do you have any observations about our Behrend students uh after after you know a few short months?

Will Walker:

Yes. And I gotta tell you, the students here are strong, very strong, very dedicated and and focused. And I I saw that in in the lab I taught, and I want to tell one little story. Okay, so the research lab is in the AMIC building, which is mechanical engineering mostly. And we just share one room. And I watched the mechanical engineering students, and I remember in college when I would goof off between classes, but the mechanical engineering students, they're in there every day before and after classes, working hard. It's amazing that the dedication they have to their studies. It's a very strong educational environment here with strong students.

Ralph Ford:

Well, thank you. I mean, I just uh like you, I love seeing the students in the hallway, seeing them working on projects and the like. And uh, we're gonna dig deeper into the research, but since you brought up the student piece, um, you know, if there's a prospective student and, you know, and they're thinking about studying in this area, why should they do that? I mean, what's the tell us a little bit about studying biology and getting involved in this type of research as an undergraduate?

Will Walker:

Well, okay, so if if you're like me, sometimes you some people just want to know the answers. Why are things the way they are? And that's the type of student that we really like to have, you know, the ones that will ask the questions and want to get to the answers. And so why should they do this? Well, you know, if that's what they want to do for their life, then this just start early and get this type of foundation that we can provide here, the foundation to begin the research capabilities that they can develop. And uh so you know, that's these students they could go to medical school, become physicians. One of the students in the teaching lab wanted to do this forensics career, and I thought that was interesting. Others want to maybe go into nursing and and uh and then that there's others that want to do basic research or a combination of basic and clinical research. And so we can provide them with the beginning of that foundation to do that.

Ralph Ford:

Can an undergraduate student really make meaningful contributions to research?

Will Walker:

Yes, and there's examples of that. And and I think we have examples where students every three months we have a lab meeting of everyone in in the research lab. And I was looking at data from undergraduate students, their research, and they presented very well. I want to say the students here are very good at presenting. And and so, and yes, they were actually making progress towards answering questions, health-related questions, that could help treat diseases. I was really quite happily surprised at the progress that they were making.

Ralph Ford:

I know I asked the question, but I'm with you. I mean, it really is one of those things that they can make meaningful contributions and they just grow so much professionally. It helps them for their careers, whether they go to graduate school or industry or anything else.

Will Walker:

Yeah, it's the start of becoming a professional, and they can learn how to do that here in the lab. And not only that, but they can get advice, career advice. They can just learn, you know, all kinds of advice. They have dedicated people in that lab that are taking care of their work and also them.

Ralph Ford:

Well, how do you train them? You know, I go into, you know, I'm switching between labs. We've got the teaching lab here, and we'll, you know, we'll talk about the research lab as well, but might as well go there a little bit right now. Super high-tech equipment up there, really complicated. How long does it take to teach a student? And are they hesitant? Like, what's that process of getting them involved on working with equipment that is just state of the art?

Will Walker:

All right, well, first let me make an advertisement for all the high-tech equipment that we have. And we're really quite well supplied. I mean, we've got state-of-the-art microscopy core, and we've got microscopes that can look at fixed tissue and cells, and we've got uh microscopy equipment that can look at cells while they're still alive, so we can treat them with various environmental factors and observe what happens inside the cell. And we've also got cell culture facilities that are equal to anything at any other university, and that where we can grow cells for their study. And and we've also got special, very highly specialized equipment that allows us to study extracellular vesicles. Okay, extracellular vesicles are small little bits of a cell that kind of bleb off and carry information to other cells. Anyway, very few labs have the equipment that we have to study these extracellular vesicles or EVs. And so, how do we teach these students to do, to treat, to work with this high quality equipment, and that is very carefully. Very carefully. Love it. Right. So we'll eventually, and I it's this is not easy to turn all the knobs and push all the buttons that allows the microscope to get give you the information that you need. It takes some time to learn all those things. And so we'll we have a technician that will help sit with them and teach them those sort of things. Cell culture is another example. We basically we have to teach the students how to be very careful and not to, well, bacteria are everywhere, and you don't want the bacteria to contaminate your cells while you're there in culture. So sterile technique is a critical concept that we have to tell them all the time. Yeah, anyway, it's these type of foundational ideas that we need to put across to them.

Ralph Ford:

You also work with faculty, and I mean we are trying to get faculty engaged across all four of our schools. But let's start particularly with two of our biology faculty members, Dr. Ashley Russell and uh Dr. Jeremiah Keys. You work closely with them each and every day, and you're mentoring them, working with them. What's that relationship like?

Will Walker:

Well, this has been a lot of fun. I mean, I really enjoy mentoring young faculty. You know, it's it it's because you know, they have to listen to you. But no, um it's fun to watch them develop and to solve the problems that come up. You know, I enjoy solving problems. And to see the progress that they make with their research and to help them to overcome the barriers that are needed to make that progress. Yeah, it it's a lot of fun. And um and I think we've made some progress since I came here. I think they're uh hopefully better off.

Ralph Ford:

I'm actually quite sure of it. And you're thinking broader than that, too. Of course, you see opportunities with engineering and humanities and social science and other schools as well.

Will Walker:

Yeah, so and that that also has been a real focus for me is to collaborate with other departments that you wouldn't think would have anything to do with biology. The engineering school, as you know, is really top-notch here, and the faculty are outstanding. And so we're we want to use that expertise and the complementary expertise with the biologists and and build something even bigger. For example, we are collaborating with two faculty members here on a microplastics project. Okay, plastic breaks down, makes very small particles, particles that are 10,000-fold smaller than the width of your um fingernail. So very small products, and but they have uh they get into the water and into your bodies and they cause all kinds of health problems. And so we're working with two engineering faculty here to try to understand how these microplastics get into cells, and then once they get into the cells, do they get out? No one knows if they get back out again, okay? And and what happens to the cell, what processes are disrupted when the microplastics get in. And I tell you, it's been a great experience working with these, you know, I I don't know why anyone needs mind-altering drugs, because I go talk to these engineers and my mind is totally blown. It's totally altered, and I go, Wow, how can how do you this is a great idea? How do you do this? And it's it's the complementarity is great.

Ralph Ford:

Well, I love it. You know, that's where so much discovery happens, right? At uh boundaries between different disciplines that we hear it so often it's cliche, but to see it in action is a different thing. Not only that, I think they're working, uh, you know, they've got a funded study with Duke University, I believe, to look at the effects of uh microplastics. So I mean it's uh it's a large effort. Does the fact that we're on Lake Erie as well, and you know, we've got a lot of microplastics in Lake Erie, I mean, that gives us another opportunity there, doesn't it? Right, it does.

Will Walker:

And hopefully someday we can help rid the environment of these microplastics. But for right now, it's important that we understand better what they do.

Ralph Ford:

Yeah. Yeah, and I think even the mechanisms of what happens when they're they're in water and they settle to the bottom and they're in the sediment, we don't fully know all of that. Are they picking up chemicals and the like? So there's so much opportunity for us to be figuring out problems that are relevant to everybody's everyday life.

Will Walker:

And we look forward to collaborating with other folks here at Behrend that actually the environmental experts here at um studying Lake Erie and the microplastics in the in the lake.

Ralph Ford:

Well, we've built this great ecosystem at Behrend, but we are connected very much to uh the Magee Women's Research Institute in Erie and Dr. Helena Szynski, who runs the effort here as well. So can you talk about how that partnership works?

Will Walker:

Okay, so Dr. Selinski is is a force of nature, totally energetic. It's great, and she's a wonderful um asset for the community here. So she heads up the women's research there at Hammond Hospital. And so, yeah, we're working with her, they have clinical trials there, and what we want to do is we want to place students to help uh work those clinical trials, to um perform some of the duties that need to be done, and also to maybe perform some of the analysis of the results. And so we're really looking forward to working with Hamot and Magee there to to get our students into the hospital and get the experiences there, and to get collaborative projects that we can all work on and get funded for. Right.

Ralph Ford:

And it's important, and you know, you talked about clinical trials, and I tell people that's not just a dry concept. Clinical trials mean that women in our region now have access to better health care than they did before, right?

Will Walker:

And and so it's super important here. Most clinical trials are performed in cities associated with the medical center. And so here in the more rural area in northeast uh Pennsylvania here, and it allows women here to uh participate in these clinical trials to be helped by the trials, but also to become a voice within the trial, to have their voices heard and their physiology to become part of the trial, and so that we can help more people in rural areas.

Ralph Ford:

Yeah, super significant. And uh between those two organizations right now, we have the you talked about seed grants earlier, but that's one of the real benefits is the two institutions come together and they put in each put in some funding, and the idea is that we bring together researchers from Pittsburgh and Erie and look at new novel ideas.

Will Walker:

Right. So I know of one that's coming that another a proposal that is coming soon, and that is it was fascinating to me. It's collaboration with Magee at Hamot and down in Pittsburgh. Is these folks, these engineering folks, they want to use these um these head covers, these eye covers, these you see virtual reality. Yeah, that's the word. Virtual reality. Oh, yeah. Virtual reality and have pregnant women wear these virtual reality headsets and walk across an engineered rug that will measure their steps and how they step. And then they hypothesize that they can tell whether a woman will become depressed after pregnancy by how they walk during pregnancy. And so this is one of the things. So they'll have engineers here collaborating with the people at Hamot and and down in at Magee to do this.

Ralph Ford:

That's amazing. That I think that's called gate analysis, right? Trying to figure out gate analysis, you know, and you can learn a lot from that. And uh we'll see where that goes.

Will Walker:

So there's a number of different projects. And we've had other projects, one was just completed lately about um prolapse. Women's uh internal organs tend to fall. And then what is done is a mesh is usually is put in to hold the or internal organs in place, and this has been nothing but trouble for many years because of the immune responses that occur in uh uh inflammation and great pain. And so um there's a seed project here, again, with other engineers, to um address and improve those meshes that are used uh for prolapse.

Ralph Ford:

Oh, yeah, and I know I think Dr. Helena Zazinski's been looking at that one with the Yes, she's been a part of that. And and as you said, I'll go back to that. She is a force of nature, she's she's on our board here, and she's just a lot of fun to work with. And every time you sit down, you get about 10 new ideas from her. And uh the reason I want to come back to that is one of the goals of this project, and we're in this for in the long term, and one of the things that concerns me about Erie is we don't get enough federal research funding. If you look per capita research funding in Pennsylvania, it goes to uh Pittsburgh, it goes to Philadelphia, and it goes to State College. And we're getting better. Uh I think that's really important because research funding is a bet on the future, I say.

Will Walker:

Well, I let me talk about one potential improvement there. Is um Dr. Russell in in the WIS lab has put in for a um NSF grant, a career grant, a five-year grant that would not only support her research, but also education here and then would would support high school students coming into the R Lab for the summer and also undergraduate research. And so we're hoping to hear about this federally funded research. Uh we're guessing in the spring. Okay. But yes, if uh hopefully this doesn't become too political, but um here at this university we're somewhat hamstrung by um the inability to get what's called R-15 grants. And these are federally funded grants for undergraduate research. I mean, these are larger project projects. And because um we are associated with or part of Penn State, Penn State has a lot of federal funding, as you stated. And the problem is that when you have a lot of federal funding, you cannot get these smaller R-15 grants for undergraduates. So we're trying to get a workaround on this so that we can uh obtain these R-15 grants to improve our funding situation for undergraduate research.

Ralph Ford:

Well, this first of all, this is a free speech zone, so we can talk about it. And uh look, we've talked to the vice president of research, and uh we're super open with you if and I know you're working on this. This is like one of your charges and missions in life, I'm sure. So we've got to change that, and that could be really game-changing for the region if we can do that.

Will Walker:

I think so. It would be game-changing for the region to be able to access those funds. It would just allow us to grow our research capabilities here to the nth degree.

Ralph Ford:

Yeah, and we can talk about you know the importance of federal funding and that it has. And I think, you know, there's a lot of questioning of higher ed. This isn't uh new news. Uh, what we do, the research we do, and how important it is. And I think what you're talking about here today and the results you're showing, are that that research really gets translated into impact pretty quickly for our community.

Will Walker:

Right. So we've had great community support. You you talk about the endowment money and the and the contributions that the community has made and and to start up the lab and continue supporting the lab. But yes, I mean uh just imagine that um, for example, Dr. Russell's research, one of the things she's doing is she's studying um UTIs, urinary tract infections in post-menopausal women. And so and she's associated, this is our project is again associated with the Magee Women's Research Institute. And so she is studying how these uh extracellular vesicles are how they are changing with a women's has a has a woman UTI. And so if we find that there's various changes to the extracellular vesicles and we can alter them again to make them right, maybe that's a an improvement for the therapy for this for the UTIs, which is a a problem for many women face. Oh, it's it's a huge problem. It's a huge problem. And I'm not a physician, but I know that there has been great advances uh for UTIs and women, and that it's uh you don't uh using systemic or injections of estrogen may not be a good idea, but topical lotions are really helping the UTI situation. So we want to be part of the people that are helping these UTIs, uh these folks with UTIs.

Ralph Ford:

I can say as somebody who has family members who suffer greatly, it uh it's important research. How about AI? Let's talk a little bit about AI. Go maybe I'm going off topic here. Are you seeing impacts? Are students using it? What are you seeing in terms of how it's impacting the research mission?

Will Walker:

So I am struggling with AI. I think a lot of people are struggling with AI and how to use it. In fact, I'm trying to sign up for a course that allows me to use AI techniques to do data analysis. For if you've ever worked with an Excel spreadsheet, we've got 23,000 lines on Excel spreadsheet and how to analyze these more efficiently. And I think this is where AI is one example where AI can be helpful in research, is to summarize and characterize. And organize all the data that we acquire. And that's one of the things that can be used for. The other thing is AI can be used, it's now being used to define various X-rays and MRIs and make diagnoses from them. But that's great for the clinicians, but we can use AI perhaps to interpret various, like for in our microscopy core, we can use AI to give us quicker, more rapid interpretations and perhaps better interpretations of the pictures that we're taking.

Ralph Ford:

Yeah. And uh I mean I would say that the spreadsheet analysis is one, and there's so many opportunities for us. And I think one of the things that I'd like to see us continue to do here at Behrend is have conversations internally. And I know we've had some on teaching. I've been talking to Dr. Allison Rhodes saying, let's put some forms together about the impact of AI on research and even how you uh conduct you know background research and the like. There are platforms appearing each and every day, and I'm like, what are these about? And there's a lot of threats though. I mean, there are a lot of concerns as well, and things we have to think about in terms of ethical use.

Will Walker:

Yeah, I I agree with the threats to and the importance of ethical use. What we need is not just generally how do you use ChatGPT. That that's great, but what we really need is directed how to solve this problem with AI solutions, right? And and discussions of that.

Ralph Ford:

You know, that's right on. By the way, I have a senior project team I'm working with this morning, and we're using AI to do some research, and I'm challenging them. I said, you know, they showed me what they were doing. I don't want to go into all the details, but my question to them is how are you going to use it to challenge your thinking to go deeper into this problem so that you understand it? And that's kind of like the next phase. And it's really pushing yourself not to just get the answer, but uh how how can I become a better thinker about it?

Will Walker:

Right. Yeah, so um I think it's important that we get down to specific questions and how AI can help at how how can we better learn how AI can answer specific questions?

Ralph Ford:

Well, we're getting close to the end of the show, but we're not done yet. So I'm going to put you on the spot. Oh, great. What does success look like? Well, you know, you've only you've been here a few months, but let's let's hear. What do you want to see in three to five years?

Will Walker:

All right, so I recently drew up a five-year plan, and what I think success is going to look like is gonna be growth of the lab, more investigators, more faculty members. But not just that, that's not really success. Success is production and productivity and useful productivity. And what we're talking about is writing, okay, academics. It's publish or perish, isn't it? So no, we need to write more papers and make more progress in our research. And that's one step. And another step is I want this place, this lab, to become a center of academic research excellence. And I've talked, we have a lot of support from Magee and other folks that want us to focus on women's health. So I think one success would be if we became a center for women's health, academic research here. And if we could then expand that into collaborating with other units in the university, engineering, humanities, et cetera, to bring everyone on board to have this expansive center that uh uses a lot of different approaches to work on women's health.

Ralph Ford:

Well, that is a great way to finish this show. I want to thank you so much uh for joining us today, but also for joining Penn State Behrend and you know, thinking deeply about not only what's going on currently, but about our future. And we're going to see what the next few years bring. Great to have you here. Thanks for having me. You have been listening to Behrend Talks. I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend. My guest today has been Dr. Will Walker, Director of the Women's Health Initiative here at Penn State Behrend.