Vinitha’s first foray into commercial translation was during her PhD at
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in 2013, where she worked on developing an early prototype of a proteomics method. This method has now been commercialized into a
protein sample preparation product by her PhD advisor, Dr. Jonathan Minden and her peer Dr. Amber Lucas.
"That’s when I caught the start-up bug, becoming more interested in start-ups and commercialization." Vinitha was also actively involved in founding and leading a student wellness initiative at CMU, called YesPlus. She led the fundraising efforts for YesPlus while fostering collaborations within and outside the university. Vinitha started considering a non-academic career path as she enjoyed the fast-pace work of leading and networking to make positive changes to the community.
"While I enjoyed my time at the lab, I realized I could also be working on things outside the lab, pushing ideas forward faster."
She first joined
Fourth River Solutions in 2017 as a consultant and volunteered to work with local investors, helping with market research in life sciences. Shortly thereafter, while looking into different opportunities to gain experience and to grow in her career, a friend told her about
sciVelo, which was then in its first year. She was very attracted to the startup-like energy of sciVelo and it seemed like the perfect fit.