Barbara Alcaraz Silva, PhD

Barbara leads the National Startup Banking Life Sciences and Healthcare group at JPMorgan. Her team works very closely with early stage founders, investors and key leaders in the industry providing financial tools. Prior to JPMorgan, Barbara spent five years working at Silicon Valley Bank where she managed the early stage group in the West Coast. As a scientist, she spent over a decade doing cancer and aging research. Her work lead to be the co-founder of  a startup company that focused on tracking biological aging. Barbara also served as an investment follow at Life Science Angels, a premier group of angels investors in Silicon Valley. In this role, she screened companies for investment and managed investor relationships. 

Barbara has published several publications in peer review journals and presented her work at National and International Conferences. Her scientific work has been recognized with several awards including the Ford Foundation Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL-NASA). 

Barbara holds a PhD in molecular biology and a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She did additional training at King’s College London and at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She has served as a board member and scientific advisor to SV Latam Capital (SVLC), where she oversaw the life science portfolio. Barbara is passionate about promoting diversity in science, entrepreneurship and venture capital.