Laura Silva

Silva joined Tech Launch Arizona as the licensing manager for the College of Science after serving as Vice President, Legal and IP at Velocys, a company she co-founded and which deploys innovative sustainable fuels production technology for aviation and heavy goods transport to achieve net zero emissions. Her more than 30 years of experience in intellectual property and licensing spans the lifecycle of innovation: from initial concept development and protection to mature commercial offering and successful patent enforcement; from company startup to executive legal and IP management of a publicly-traded company. She has negotiated and completed alliance transactions with diverse companies worldwide, ranging from Fortune 50 to small private companies in various industries, including in energy, chemicals, consumer products, construction, and manufacturing. Prior to Velocys, she served as Commercialization Manager for Battelle Memorial Institute at PNNL. Silva has also served in various technology development and engineering roles at Chevron, PNNL, and Velocys. Her commercialization teams have won two national Federal Laboratory Consortium awards and an R&D100 award. She is an inventor on more than 35 U.S.-granted patents and has B.S./M.S. chemical engineering degrees from Washington State University.