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Speaker: Rebecca Wilson, PhD in Chemical Engineering, USC
Talk: Alternative STEM Careers: Venture Capital (!?)

Wait… but I thought venture capitalists were all finance bros? How does a woman in science go from academia to venture capital? And why?? Well, if you want to be at the cusp of innovation and commercialization, this might be the path for you.

Becky joined Rhapsody Venture Partners as an Associate in May 2021, where she spends most of her time sourcing and diligencing startups. Rhapsody is a Boston-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage, “hard tech” startups that address industrial problems — new materials, sensors, engineering and process innovations, etc.

She received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at USC in 2019, where she worked in Mark Thompson’s lab on the design of novel light-harvesting materials through supramolecular chemistry and self assembly. During this time, she co-founded a materials startup, AesculaTech, which came in second place in both the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition and the New Venture Seed Competition at USC. After graduate school, she joined a biomaterials startup out of MIT as the Director of Materials Engineering through which she participated in the IndieBio accelerator.

Becky is also an outdoor enthusiast, most notably spending her time rock climbing and paragliding.