News Archive

Danica Hostettler, ’03, is the new president of the IU Robert H. McKinney Alumni Association Board.

She is Assistant General Patent Counsel, IP Litigation at Eli Lilly and Company. Hostettler earned a B.S. in chemistry at IUPUI in 1992 while working in Lilly Research Laboratories and advanced to Associate Pharmaceutical Chemist in 1993. She earned a J.D., cum laude, from McKinney in 2003, by working during the day and attending classes in the evening.

Hostettler joined Lilly’s Patent Division as a Patent Research Administrator in 2000 and was promoted to Patent Attorney in 2003. More recently, she served as Assistant General Patent Counsel and Six Sigma Black Belt in Lilly Legal. Her practice focused on global patent procurement for small molecule and bio-product assets spanning oncology, neuroscience and bio-medicines prior to taking on a new role in IP litigation in 2018.

In 2015, Hostettler decided to become involved with the law school’s alumni association, motivated by “love of education and gratitude” and a colleague’s suggestion.

“I am from very humble origins, and school changed my world,” Hostettler says. “When I applied to IUPUI as a 17-year-old, I received a full academic scholarship which was life-changing. I love being a lawyer, too, so for me the opportunity to give back to the law school is very important.”

Her goals for her term of office is to increase the influence of the alumni association by being more impactful with students and expanding an active alumni network, while further fortifying scholarship opportunities.

Hostettler says that although McKinney alumni are busy, she has also experienced their willingness to lend support if approached with a request to help a student or share their expertise. She hopes alumni will take advantage of future opportunities to get to know Dean Karen E. Bravo, too.

Many of those encounters may be different due to COVID-19 restrictions on the usual social gatherings, but, playing on the famous line from the musical Hamilton, Hostettler says she hopes alumni will want “to be in the Zoom™ where it happens.”

“We’d like to get the word out that if you give us one hour or have one conversation with a student, you’ll be giving someone a great gift,” Hostettler says. “In that way, we fortify greatness in our profession.”