Rate My Professor Joana Silva

Joana Carneiro da Silva is Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Associate Director of Research at the Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore. She earned a B.Sc. in Biology from Universidade Clássica de Lisboa, Faculty of Sciences, in 1992, and a Ph.D. in Genetics from The University of Arizona in 2000. Following her doctorate, she held a Fogarty Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health (2000-2002). She then advanced at The Institute for Genomic Research from Staff Scientist I (2002-2004) and II (2005) to Assistant Investigator (2006-2007). At the University of Maryland School of Medicine, she joined as Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology (2007-2015), progressed to Associate Professor (2015-2020), and became full Professor in 2020. Additional roles include Affiliate Member of the Division of Malaria Research, Institute for Global Health (2011-present), Affiliate Faculty at George Mason University's School of Systems Biology (2014-2018), and Professor at the Institute for Genome Sciences.

Her research employs evolutionary genetics and genomic sciences for basic and translational studies of parasitic infectious diseases, particularly Apicomplexa parasites including Plasmodium (human malaria), Theileria (cattle and horse theileriosis), Babesia (human and bovine babesiosis), and Cryptosporidium (human cryptosporidiosis). Projects investigate species biology and evolution, host-parasite interactions via comparative genomics and transcriptomics, and pathogen genetic variation's effects on drug resistance, vaccine efficacy, and design using population genomics. Her work has received funding from the NSF, NIH, USDA, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Notable awards include the Maryland’s Top 100 Women Award (2013), Baltimore City Community College Partnership Award (2016), and Dr. Patricia Sokolove Outstanding Mentor Award from UMB Graduate Student Association (2016), alongside earlier fellowships. Key publications encompass 'Whole-genome sieve analysis: identification of protective malaria antigens by leveraging allele-specific vaccine efficacy' (Vaccine, 2025), 'Plasmodium simium: birth and evolution of a zoonotic malaria parasite species' (Parasitology, 2025), 'Regular Plasmodium falciparum importation onto Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea, hampers malaria elimination' (PLoS Global Public Health, 2025), 'Immunogenomic profile at baseline predicts host susceptibility to clinical malaria disease' (Frontiers in Immunology, 2023), and 'Capture-based enrichment method reveals extremely high genome-wide sequence diversity in Theileria parva' (PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 2020).