Dr. Hagerman is chief innovation officer at UW Health and executive director of the Isthmus Project, an innovation initiative supporting the commercialization of healthcare solutions developed with or within UW Health and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She leads operations for the Isthmus Project, which has partnered with more than 200 innovators across 34 specialties and 54 subspecialties. Since joining in late 2019, Dr. Hagerman has helped build the program’s operational structure and define its value proposition as an innovation hub embedded within an academic health system. Her team provides mentorship ranging from foundational guidance on intellectual property and market assessment to multi-month engagements that use milestone-based stage gates to mitigate technical and business risk. Dr. Hagerman brings experience across biotechnology, product development and commercialization, including prior leadership roles at Conexus Indiana and Rose-Hulman Ventures. She was recognized as one of the “Top Women in Tech” honorees by Purpose Jobs in 2024 and was named a 2018 “40 Under 40” by the Indianapolis Business Journal.
