Mike Silver, a newspaper innovator for more than 20 years who once advised Tribune Co. to invest in a small start-up called Quantum Computer Services and most recently led the Newspaper Consortium, will head the new Knight News Innovation Laboratory at Northwestern University.

His appointment was announced today.

Silver held “lots of different vice-presidencies” at Tribune Co. and has an MBA from Stanford and an MS in journalism from Columbia University. He started his career as a reporter at the Miami Herald, and spent almost four years as a reporter at The Orlando Sentinel before moving into television at a Miami public television station. He was with Tribune from 1985 through 2007 and joined the Newspaper Consortium in August of 2008.

“The Knight Lab presents a unique opportunity to foster innovation through technologies with appeal to traditional news providers as well as the many new voices that are shaping the way we keep up with news today,” Silver said in the news release.

The lab, described as “the first of its kind” by Northwestern, will bring together journalists and computer scientists “to improve the news and information people use to understand their communities and run their lives.” Rich Gordon, who like Silver also worked at the Miami Herald, is a professor and director of digital innovation at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and has long been trying to get journalists and computer scientists to work together.

“Mike’s depth of experience in digital technologies, publishing, news and media is exactly what we need to move the Knight Lab forward,“ said Kristian J. Hammond, director of the Medill-McCormick Center for Innovation in Technology, Media and Journalism. “With him at the helm we are set to transform a set of exciting possibilities into a brilliant reality.”

Oh, about that small start-up, Quantum? It later became AOL, and Tribune’s investment of $5 million for a 9 percent stake was worth more than $1.5 billion at one point.