Thomasine Isler

I come from a single-parent, teenage mother household and I'm proud to be a first-generation college student. I served in the Army for 20 years in logistics and business, where being a servant leader to over 200 soldiers in my last position alone, and thousands over those 20 years, was probably one of my most influential achievements. Upon retiring, I decided to go back to school to get some degrees behind my experience, so I relocated to Virginia and enrolled in Virginia Commonwealth University. My time there as a student was transformational - I was working on a circularity project for critical mineral recovery of rare earth elements when a colleague who was also military asked if I'd ever heard of technology transfer. I had no idea what it was at that point. I went in for a soft interview and was given a trial basis because they don't typically hire military personnel, usually getting PhD candidates or researchers who worked in academia for years. They took a chance on me, and I've been with VCU Technology Transfer and Ventures for 2 years now, absolutely loving it. In my current role, I help researchers commercialize their innovations by getting patent protection and finding industry partners to bring their ideas from the bench and bedside out into the real world where they can make a societal impact. One of my most notable projects has been working alongside the Gates Foundation and researchers who developed an innovative way to help neonates born with respiratory distress syndrome - we're helping get this life-saving device out into the world to help neonates in third world countries.