Prof. Silva graduated in Chemistry at the University of Vigo in 2001, then pursued studies exploring the reactivity of allenals and vinyl-allenes through computational chemistry and obtained his PhD with this work early in 2006. He then moved to the University of Minnesota with Prof. Darrin York to study RNA catalysis. Late in 2006 he won a competitive call for a tenure track position in the University of Vigo. He therefore split for a period of time his duties between the two institutions. During this time he expanded his lines of research to homogeneous metal catalysis and made some incursions into photochemistry. In 2011 he was promoted to professor of Organic Chemistry, a position that is holding currently. Once in a permanent position Prof. Silva has maintained an active international profile with appointments as visiting professor in 2014 (SMU, Texas) and Fulbright visiting professor in 2019 (Rutgers, NJ).
Nowadays Prof. Silva is author of more than 80 scientific papers and 3 book chapters, he serves as referee for renowned journals in the fields of Organic and Computational Chemistry and for funding agencies in Spain, USA, Italy and Panama.