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Dame Joanna Gabrielle da Silva (born 1967) is the Global Director of Sustainable Development at Arup Group.

Early life and education

Da Silva was born in Washington, D.C. to John Burke da Silva CMG and Jennifer Jane da Silva. She studied engineering at the University of Cambridge where she was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. She graduated in 1988 and then travelled, seeing the roles of engineers first-hand. She worked in central India on emergency management.

Career

Da Silva joined Arup Group as a graduate engineer in 1989. She was part of the development of the Hong Kong International Airport and National Portrait Gallery, London. She began to work in post-disaster engineering in 1991. In 2001, she was selected as one of Management Today's 35 Women Under 35. She has investigated the relationship between populations and the built environment, in particular the role of infrastructure in reducing vulnerability.

In 2009, da Silva founded the Arup International Development group, a non-profit subsidiary of Arup Group which works with organisations that look to improve the coordination of infrastructure development in the developing world. She is a member of RedR, Engineers for Disaster Relief, a charity which has thousands of engineers who will respond quickly after a disaster. Arup encourage humanitarian efforts to build back better, preventing homes being destroyed when floods or disasters return.

Da Silva is a specialist in disaster reduction and has worked with various humanitarian groups. She worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. She coordinated the efforts of over 100 humanitarian agencies and the building of over 60,000 shelters in six months. From 2008 to 2017, she worked with Sabre Education to develop a series of early-years learning facilities in Ghana. The work was supported by the Institution of Civil Engineers. She has since been working with the World Bank on a Global Program for Safer Schools. Da Silva worked with Tower Hamlets Council on Ideas Stores, a way to bring IT facilities to communities in East London.

Awards and honours

Da Silva was elected as Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2009.

She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2011 for services to engineering and humanitarian relief and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to engineering and international, sustainable development.

In 2012, she became the first woman to deliver the Institution of Civil Engineers Brunel International Lecture, discussing the role of engineers in responding to disaster. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Technology (DTech) degree from Coventry University in 2014. She was featured in a 2015 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and 2016 Victoria and Albert Museum campaigns describing her career in engineering.

She is founder and on the Board of the Lloyd's Register and Arup-supported global programme to accelerate critical infrastructure resilience, "The Resilience Shift", which stimulates improved resilience and whole-system thinking through thought leadership, grant making, and convening.

Da Silva was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers in 2017 for her work in urban resilience. She delivered her Gold Medal lecture at Trinity College Dublin in 2018, talking about Design, Disaster and Development.

She delivered the 2018 Judith Neilson Lecture at the University of New South Wales.

In 2021, Da Silva was named a Dame for her work within disaster relief and sustainability in locations such as Haiti and Sri Lanka.

In November 2021 she was recognised as a Royal Designer for Industry for her sustainable design.

Media

In November 2021 Da Silva was the guest on the long running BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs.

References

1. da Silva, Jo; Kernaghan, Sam; Luque, Andrés (2012). "A systems approach to meeting the challenges of urban climate change". International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development. 4 (2): 125–145. Bibcode:2012IJUSD...4..125D. doi:10.1080/19463138.2012.718279. ISSN 1946-3138. S2CID 154773157.
2. "Jo da Silva - Arup". www.arup.com. Retrieved 29 August 2023.
3. ^ "Jo da Silva OBE". Coventry University. Retrieved 31 December 2020.
4. ^ Anon (2009). "Da Silva, Joanna Gabrielle". Who's Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U249757. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
5. ^ "Alumna Jo da Silva awarded The Institution of Structural Engineers Gold Medal | Department of Engineering". eng.cam.ac.uk. 9 October 2017. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
6. ^ "Jo Da Silva - Speakers". Habitat III. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
7. "Jo da Silva OBE". RAEng. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
8. "35 WOMEN UNDER 35: Young and bossy". managementtoday.co.uk. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
9. CISL (4 May 2011), Jo da Silva - Built environment brokering the relationship between people and planet, retrieved 8 December 2018
10. "Jo Da Silva | Urban Africa Risk Knowledge (Urban ARK)". urbanark.org. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
11. "Jo da Silva - Arup". arup.com. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
12. "Articles - Engineers in disaster relief". ingenia.org.uk. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
13. ^ z3527421 (2 November 2018). "Building a stronger future: Jo da Silva to deliver Judith Neilson Lecture". UNSW Newsroom. Retrieved 8 December 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
14. Stimpson, Jo (13 June 2011). "Civils and construction figures get birthday honours". New Civil Engineer. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
15. work, Where women. "Meet Arup's impressive Jo da Silva". Where Women Work. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
16. Gryc, Hayley; da Silva, Jo (2013). "Global engineers thinking locally: creating kindergartens for Africa". Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Civil Engineering. 166 (3): 114–121. doi:10.1680/cien.12.00042. ISSN 0965-089X.
17. "Building Better Schools in Ghana". Sabre Education. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
18. "ICE Virtual Library". icevirtuallibrary.com. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
19. ^ O’Connell, Claire (19 January 2018). "Engineering a better future for society". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
20. Anon (2018). "List of Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering". raeng.org.uk. Royal Academy of Engineering. Archived from the original on 9 December 2018. Retrieved 9 December 2018.
21. "London: Queen's Birthday Honours". bbc.com. BBC News. 11 June 2011. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
22. Hartley, Laura (2020). "Frontline workers and charity volunteers among celebrities in New Year Honours list". WalesOnline. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
23. "No. 63218". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2020. p. N8.
24. "Jo da Silva to deliver 9th Brunel International Lecture series - Arup". arup.com. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
25. Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, "Jo Da Silva - Disaster Relief Engineer, Arup", youtube.com, retrieved 8 December 2018
26. Anon (2017), Interview with Jo Da Silva, Victoria and Albert Museum, retrieved 8 December 2018
27. "The Resilience Shift". resilienceshift.org.
28. "New global team formed to strengthen societys resilience to shocks and stresses". arup.com. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
29. "The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers". st.hkie.org.hk. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
30. "New Year Honours: Damehood for Muswell Hill woman's disaster-zone work". 4 January 2022.
31. "2021 Royal Designers for Industry". Retrieved 4 December 2021.

• 1967 births
• Living people
• Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• Female fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
• Engineering award winners
• 21st-century British engineers
• 21st-century British women engineers
• British structural engineers
• Royal Designers for Industry