Meet Sara Myers, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activity @ University of Nebraska at Omaha / Adviser @ Grasshopper Health

The UNO Office of Research and Creative Activity provides students and faculty resources, funding and mentorship to develop research and creative projects. Myers said her role has her oversee research activities across the entire UNO campus. 

Grasshopper Health is a medtech startup originating from collaborative work across the University of Nebraska System. Researchers are building a wearable patch to analyze a patient’s gait with the goal of medical and health professionals using the data for the early detection and monitoring of neurologic, vascular and musculoskeletal diseases. 

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur or support other entrepreneurs?

I grew up in a farm family, and my husband is an entrepreneur, so I’ve always been very interested in growing a business/interest of my own. However, I have had entrepreneurial roles come up more organically within academia, as an adviser, developing an intellectual idea that would solve clinical problems. 

So using my work to help others is really what has inspired me the most.

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time to when you were just starting out?

Write down every crazy idea or thought, even if it seems impossible. I am seeing some of those ideas in the marketplace now! 

I would also encourage myself to be more collaborative and reach out to others who could have helped me make some of those ideas a reality earlier on.

How do you stay motivated when things feel overwhelming — or stagnant?

I am a very task-oriented person. So especially when I get overwhelmed, I like to focus on the next step I should be taking — even when I don’t feel like it. 

I am also a big believer in being a steward of my health, which helps me manage stress.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome and how did you overcome it?

My biggest challenge as an entrepreneur is understanding the complexity of all aspects required for the business. There are so many aspects that you have to figure out from taxes, paperwork, fundraising, regulations, etc., that it is easy to be overwhelmed. 

Thankfully, we have a great innovation support structure connected to the University — UNeMed, which can guide us through this process for university inventions as well as direct us to other resources. 

Another challenge is the timeline from invention to actually producing a product that can generate revenue, and I am still in this process now. For the company I am currently involved in, Grasshopper Health, we have approached this challenge by building a team to fill the various roles. 

How can the Nebraska community support you?

I am a native Nebraskan, so the community is quite important to me. One way is to continue being open to volunteering as research subjects. We cannot evaluate new technologies without testing them with the people we are trying to help. 

Another way would be to provide opportunities for us to present the vision of our company and how it can help identify movement problems early. This can help spread the word to stakeholders about what we are doing. 

It is also helpful if Nebraskans support our technology transfer and startup environment, whether with donations or encouraging the state to adopt policies that benefit small and startup businesses.