Biography
Barbara Silva is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Management at the University of Central Florida’s College of Business. She holds both master’s and bachelor’s degrees in business management and previously worked as a strategic finance manager in the telecommunications industry. Her research centers on immigrant entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial well-being, and social dynamics in entrepreneurship. At UCF, she teaches courses in Social Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management.
Barbara’s work has been published in Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice and Journal of Business Venturing Insights. She has presented her research at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting multiple times and has received several accolades, including UCF’s Doctoral Research Award (2025) and the Outstanding Research Insight Publication Award from the Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange (2022). Her teaching effectiveness has also been recognized with the Management Department’s Doctoral Student Teaching Award (2024), the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Teaching (2022), and the Gary Nichols Teaching Excellence Award.
Originally from Brazil, Barbara launched her own venture in her early 20s. After successfully scaling and exiting the business, she moved to Orlando in 2021 with her husband to pursue her long-standing dream of becoming a professor.