Tillman Scholar would never tell you how great he is

David Hibler ’12, ’12, ’20 MS has walked a winding, productive path through nearly two decades at Ohio State. 

As an undergraduate, the Army combat medic earned dual degrees while working around several interruptions for training and deployment. He’s held staff positions at the Wexner Medical Center and in the College of Nursing and worked as a graduate teaching assistant in multiple departments. By his count, he holds seven Ohio State accreditations and degrees — not including the PhD he’s working on now.

Hibler’s interdisciplinary mindset and hunger for learning, along with extensive work helping fellow veterans, caught the attention of the Pat Tillman Foundation, which this summer named him a 2023 Tillman Scholar. Family and friends of Tillman, who left an NFL career for military service, started the foundation after the Army Ranger was killed in Afghanistan in 2004.

Hibler is one of 60 veterans, service members and military spouses nationwide chosen for this year’s class in recognition of their service and leadership potential. Meeting his fellow honorees at the foundation’s leadership summit in Chicago this summer filled him with humility.

“It felt like a great honor before I went to the summit. Just meeting all these people and realizing the incredible things they’re doing, it’s more than an honor now,” Hibler says. “Being a part of this community is just beyond incredible. I am very fortunate to be able to count myself among them.”

Hibler is the 10th Buckeye to be named a Tillman Scholar. (Gretchen Klingler was a member of the 2017 class. You can read her story on this webpage.) While the honor comes with financial support for his studies, he says he most prizes the access he now has to the sprawling Tillman network and what the accolade represents: faith in the value of his work.

“They say it over and over and over again: ‘This is not payment for what you’ve done. This is not because we think you’re a good person. This is because we are investing in the impact that you’re going to have in the future,’” he says.

For his PhD in evolution, ecology and organismal biology, Hibler is studying the highly invasive mosquitofish as a way of getting at a more complex topic: complexity itself. It’s an emerging scientific field that plays to the strengths of someone like Hibler, who has studied biology, psychology, sociology, public health and more, as well as observed war and society in Iraq. He hopes the dynamics within schools of mosquitofish can inform his study of how social groups’ interactions can affect individuals’ welfare, especially their health.

For all the time he spends in the weeds of research, Hibler remains deeply committed to helping veterans facing the arduous transition back to civilian life, as he once did. Since 2017, he’s worked with Ohio State’s Major Lawrence Miller Military Community Advocate Program, connecting military-affiliated students with resources and helping them acclimate.

Hibler also has worked to consolidate four mentoring programs within Ohio State’s Military and Veterans Services, benefitting the office and veterans. “Dave was simply born to serve,” says Assistant Vice Provost Kevin Cullen, the retired Air Force colonel who directs the office. “This started early in his childhood, was crystalized during his military service and has continued during his higher education journey. He epitomizes the university’s motto, ‘Disciplina in Civitatem’ or ‘Education for Citizenship.’”

Hibler also is working to develop a training program for aspiring mentors, efforts that still are in their early stages. Collaborators include Military and Veterans Services, the Chronic Brain Injury Program and other medical center units as well as a diverse group of individuals from veterans programs such as the National Veterans Leadership Foundation and The Overwatch Partnership.

“We are hoping it will be used by anyone who wants to better understand how to mentor or help military-connected students,” he says. “There is a significant need for mentorship that we hear from all aspects of the military and veteran community, and we are hoping a program like this will help to fill that need.”  The program represents a continuation of the extensive work Hibler has done to strengthen Ohio State’s community of veterans since he arrived on campus in 2005.

“Ohio State is an incredible place to be for a veteran student,” he says. “An incredible place to be for a student who wants to learn on the cutting edge. An incredible place to be for somebody who truly wants to make an impact in the world. I’m just lucky to be here.”