Summer 2025 - Catia Silva

Instructional Assistant Professor, Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering

Dr. Catia S. Silva is an Instructional Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida. She specializes in machine learning, artificial intelligence, data analytics, personalized learning, workforce development, and experiential education. Dr. Silva teaches courses in data science and AI, actively supporting UF’s university-wide initiative to integrate AI across disciplines. She currently serves as the Program Coordinator for both the Master of Science in Applied Data Science and the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence Systems.

Dr. Silva is also a GitHub Campus Advisor In this role, she co-developed training programs to help faculty across campus incorporate Git and GitHub Classroom into their teaching, and assists students in effectively managing repositories and collaborative projects using Git.

With a truly interdisciplinary education and academic path, Dr. Silva’s background bridges applied mathematics, biomedical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and artificial intelligence. She earned her B.S. in Applied Mathematics in 2010 and her M.S. in Biomedical Engineering in 2012 from the University of Porto, where her thesis applied data science and machine learning to feature extraction and classification of dermoscopic images. During this time, she also participated in research groups, conferences, and competitions focused on image processing, including retinal vessel segmentation, dermoscopic image classification, and fingerprint detection.

Since joining the faculty, Dr. Silva has been recognized with multiple teaching excellence awards for her innovative, student-centered approach to education and her commitment to preparing students for real-world challenges.