Jo da Silva facts for kids

Dame Joanna Gabrielle da Silva (born in 1967) is a super important engineer. She works as the Global Director of Sustainable Development at a company called Arup Group. This means she helps make sure that buildings and projects are good for the planet and for people in the long run.

Her Early Life and School

Joanna da Silva was born in Washington, D.C. in the United States. Her parents are John Burke da Silva and Jennifer Jane da Silva. She went to the University of Cambridge in England to study engineering. She was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. After she finished her studies in 1988, she traveled around the world. This helped her see how engineers really make a difference. For example, she helped with emergency management in central India.

Her Engineering Career

Joanna da Silva started working at Arup Group in 1989. She joined as a new engineer right after college. She helped with big projects like building the Hong Kong International Airport. She also worked on the National Portrait Gallery, London. In 1991, she started focusing on engineering work after disasters. She wanted to help communities rebuild safely. In 2001, a magazine called Management Today named her one of the "35 Women Under 35." This showed she was a rising star. She studies how people and buildings connect. She especially looks at how good buildings and roads can protect people when bad things happen.

Helping After Disasters

In 2009, Jo da Silva started a special group at Arup. It's called the Arup International Development group. This group is like a non-profit part of Arup. It works with other groups to build better things in developing countries. She is also a member of RedR. This is a charity called "Engineers for Disaster Relief." They have thousands of engineers ready to help quickly after a disaster. Arup encourages people to "build back better" after a disaster. This means making homes stronger so they don't get destroyed again by floods or other problems.

Jo da Silva is an expert in reducing the harm from disasters. She has worked with many groups that help people. For example, she worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Sri Lanka. This was after a huge earthquake and tsunami in 2004. She helped organize over 100 different aid groups. Together, they built more than 60,000 shelters in just six months! From 2008 to 2017, she worked with Sabre Education. They built new learning centers for young children in Ghana. The Institution of Civil Engineers supported this work. More recently, she has been working with the World Bank. They are creating a program to make schools safer around the world. She also worked with Tower Hamlets Council in London. They created "Ideas Stores" to bring computer and internet access to communities.

Awards and Special Recognitions

In 2009, Jo da Silva became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng). This is a big honor for engineers. She received the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) award in 2011. This was for her great work in engineering and helping people. Then, in 2021, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). This is a very high honor, like being a knight. It was for her work in engineering and helping with sustainable development around the world.

In 2012, she was the first woman to give the Brunel International Lecture for the Institution of Civil Engineers. She talked about how engineers help when disasters happen. Coventry University gave her an honorary Doctor of Technology (DTech) degree in 2014. This means they recognized her amazing achievements. She was featured in campaigns by the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (2015) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (2016). These campaigns showed off her career in engineering.

She started a global program called "The Resilience Shift." This program helps make important buildings and systems stronger against problems. It works with Lloyd's Register and Arup. In 2017, Jo da Silva won the Gold Medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers. She earned this for her work on making cities stronger and safer. She gave a special speech at Trinity College Dublin in 2018. She talked about design, disasters, and development. In 2018, she also gave the Judith Neilson Lecture at the University of New South Wales. In November 2021, she was recognized as a Royal Designer for Industry. This was for her work in sustainable design.

Media Appearances

In November 2021, Jo da Silva was a guest on a famous BBC Radio 4 show called Desert Island Discs. On this show, guests talk about their lives and choose music they would take to a desert island.