WEES Seminar Fall 2025:
Lucas Loetscher
November 19
4:00 p.m.
Wagar 231

Abstract

From Lab Notebook to Term Sheet: A Graduate Student’s Journey in University IP and Startups

Graduate education typically emphasizes experiments and papers, but along the way students routinely generate insights that could live on as patents, products, and startups. This talk is designed to help you view your own research through an inventor’s lens and understand how to move ideas along the university intellectual property (IP) pathway.

At Colorado State University, a robust technology-transfer ecosystem has yielded hundreds of patents and more than 90 startups. Within that environment, graduate student and founder Lucas Loetscher will describe how his waste-to-energy research progressed from thesis work to patent protection and an active commercial venture.
 
The session will equip students with practical tools for developing IP in their own fields, clarify how IP-focused work differs from typical academic outputs, and illustrate how collaborative teams of scientists, engineers, business professionals, and tech-transfer staff move ideas from “big problem” to disclosure, protection, licensing, and startup formation. Students will leave with concrete strategies for recognizing “invention moments” in their research and engaging with university IP resources.
Register for Teams Link
Portrait of man in blue shirt.

Biography

Lucas Loetscher
CEO, Fluent Renewables Inc.

Lucas Loetscher is the founder and CEO of Fluent Renewables Inc.; a Colorado State University spinout built around his master’s and Ph.D. research in Civil and Environmental Engineering. His work focuses on converting heterogeneous agricultural and municipal solid waste into renewable fuels and chemicals. He helped develop and patent a high-solids digestion platform (demonstrated at the 30,000-liter scale), in collaboration with NREL, a novel carboxylic acid extraction technology for renewable chemicals, and now leads Fluent’s effort to deliver a commercial-scale organics recovery and renewable natural gas project at Colorado’s largest composting facility. His work at CSU and Fluent has attracted competitive federal support, including funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program, and has fostered international collaborations with technology providers and bioenergy developers.