It's September here at UMBC, and the campus is alive with excitement and fun as students cross the quads with their backpacks full of notes and reading. You know, I recall that same sense of excitement when arriving at UNC's campus a decade and a half ago, totally bewildered by and eager for all the possibilities. I lived on campus, so this feeling was 24/7. And you know, one thing that more modern college students may not be able to comprehend is that my first year dorm had no air conditioning. Yeah, you can imagine how much more intense all the feelings were when accompanied by the heat and humidity of late August in North Carolina. But another feature of living in the first year dorms was that I was randomly assigned a roommate. My roommate, whose name I won't disclose, was a total stranger to me in the first year, though, we got to know each other well over the time we spent living together. He ended up going to medical school and is now a practicing physician. So I like to think that there were some good vibes emanating from that oven-like dorm room after all, in this case, UNC forced us to live together, which ended up being great for both of us. But I wonder what it would have been like if, instead of the camaraderie of my hardworking roommate, I had sweated it out in my first year dorm room, alone. Living alone is a relatively common phenomenon that bears some very important social consequences. To unpack the process of aging while living alone, I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Jun Chu to the podcast. Dr Chu is an Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Public Health here at UMBC. Jun conducts research in the intersection of health policy and immigrants in the United States. His other research interests include patients and caregivers of Alzheimer's disease and related dementia, access and utilization of primary care services in the US, and quantitative research methods. Let's hear what Dr. Chu has to say about the social science of living alone, right now.