Hannah Wilen bought a used 3D printer and taught herself to prototype a medical device in her apartment. No outside funding. No lab. Just the problem-solving instincts she picked up at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering.

The result: CapdCup, a menstrual cup designed to be emptied without removal, made by her company Capd Period. Wilen, who earned her Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Pratt in 2020 and her Master of Quantitative Management from Fuqua in 2022, co-founded the Santa Monica-based company with Neil Bhatia, who serves as COO, in January 2022. This profile draws on a Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship interview and coverage from early 2023; the company has not issued public updates since then.

"I actually never thought I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I still don't consider myself an entrepreneur — I'm just a problem solver!" Wilen told Duke I&E.

The cup works via a cap at the bottom that unscrews while in use. Made of hypoallergenic, medical-grade silicone, it lasts up to 10 years and can be worn for 12 hours continuously. Wilen originally designed it for regions with limited access to clean water, where disposable products are scarce and menstruation keeps girls out of school.

Wilen and Bhatia wrote the CapdCup patent themselves to save money. In 2023, they won the Westly Prize for Young Social Innovators, a $40,000 award from the Westly Foundation that recognizes California-based founders under 28. The prize was earmarked for distribution of 10,000 CapdCups to menstruating people in Uganda. Wilen was also named an October 2022 WomensNet Amber Grant finalist.

The Duke connection runs deep. Wilen traces her prototyping approach directly to time spent 3D printing at the Duke Co-Lab Studio. At Fuqua, she learned to use data and analytics to drive business decisions and shape CapdCup's go-to-market strategy. Her favorite undergraduate memory: building a robot with friends for a Battlebot competition.

Wilen, who grew up in West Los Angeles, was often the only woman in a room of male engineers at Duke. That experience, she told Duke I&E, fueled her ability to stand in front of audiences and talk openly about periods, blood, and reproductive health.

Wilen now operates Kavahana, a kava bar in Santa Monica. Kava also happens to be the organic Hawaiian drink featured in Moana 2.