Elise Silva is the Director of Policy Research at Pitt Cyber, where she analyzes the complex interplay between technology and society in today’s information ecosystems with an eye toward creative policy solutions.
Dr. Silva brings a broad range of research methods and perspectives to her work, which is informed by humanistic analysis, social science approaches, and a commitment to community engagement. Her writing has appeared in venues such as the Journal of Information Literacy, Tech Policy Press, and The Conversation.
Dr. Silva was formerly an academic librarian overseeing program-wide information literacy curriculum and a visiting English faculty member at Brigham Young University. She holds a PhD in Writing Studies from Pitt’s English Department, a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of North Texas, and an MA in English from BYU.
In 2025, she won the Journal of Information Literacy’s biennial Ross Todd Award for an Outstanding Research Report; in 2024, her doctoral dissertation received an honorable mention for the Computers and Composition Journal’s annual Hugh Burns Distinguished Dissertation Award; in 2022, she received a Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship; and in 2017, she won the American Library Association’s Library Instruction Round Table Innovation Award.