In her role as senior policy analyst at Education Sector, Silva oversees the organization's teacher quality work and develops and directs mixed-method research projects designed to evaluate education reform efforts at the national, state, and local levels. Recent publications include Waiting to Be Won Over: Teachers Speak on the Profession, Unions, and Reform (2008) and The Benwood Plan: A Lesson in Comprehensive Teacher Reform (2008). Silva serves as a member of the design team for the National Center for Education Statistics Schools and Staffing Survey and Teacher Follow-Up Survey.

Prior to joining Education Sector, Silva was the director of research for the American Association of University Women, where she led numerous national research projects and wrote related research reports on gender equity in STEM fields, higher education, and the workplace, including Women at Work (2003), Under the Microscope: A Decade of Gender Equity Projects in the Sciences (2004), and Drawing the Line: Sexual Harassment on Campus (2005). Previously, Silva developed and directed an AmeriCorps youth service program for the ASPIRA Association and served as the association's representative to the U.S. Senate Task Force on Hispanic Education. She developed curriculum for youth-led research, evaluation, and planning for the California-based nonprofit Youth In Focus, where she also served as a founding board member. And she taught undergraduate courses in urban education and public school reform at the University of California-Berkeley, where she received her master's degree and Ph.D. in education. She also holds a bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and is co-author of the 2003 book, Critical Voices in School Reform: Students Living Through Change, and a contributing author of the recent book, Unfinished Business: Closing the Racial Achievement Gap in Our Schools.