Elena Silva is a senior policy analyst at Education Sector, where she oversees the organization's teacher quality work and directs mixed-method research projects designed to evaluate a variety of education reform efforts at the national, state and local levels. Silva has researched and written on a wide range of educational issues while at Education Sector, including public school staffing and school design, scheduling, assessment, and the role of teachers unions in reform. Prior, Silva was the director of research for the American Association of University Women, a national membership organization and educational foundation, where she led national research initiatives and wrote related research reports on gender equity in science and technology, higher education, and the workplace, and managed the foundation's research grants portfolio. Silva also previously managed youth leadership and education programs at the ASPIRA Association, one of the largest national Hispanic-serving organizations, where she developed and directed one of the first AmeriCorps service programs in the nation.

Silva holds a master's degree and a Ph.D in education from the University of California-Berkeley, where she taught undergraduate courses in urban education, the history of public education, high school reform and qualitative research. She also holds a bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Silva has served and serves as an advisor to numerous national and local organizations and agencies, including the California-based nonprofit Youth In Focus, the DC-based Washington Area Women's Foundation, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the U.S. Senate Task Force on Hispanic Education.