Vera Silva

Early life and education As a child Silva visited a large hydro power plant which sparked her interest in electricity systems. Silva studied electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Porto. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1999 and a master's degree in 2003 both in electrical engineering. She moved to the United Kingdom for her doctoral studies, earning a PhD in the electrical and electronics engineering in 2010. Her PhD investigated the value of flexibility in systems that use wind power and was supervised by .

Research and career She worked as a lecturer and data scientist at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. Silva was the chief technology officer (CTO) at General Electric grid solutions, where she led 3,400 engineers around the world and worked on new electricity grid technology. She was one of the few women to be made CTO at General Electric. She believes the future will involve more sustainable and flexible technologies, integrating microgrids and high voltage direct current (DC) transmission lines. She is pushing for utilities operators to find it easier to integrate renewables into homes.