 Prof. Carlos Silva Title: Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Tecnico
Current research interests: Operations research, supply chain management, intelligent control systems
Carlos Silva joined the IST faculty this year as a member of the team guiding the Sustainable Energy Systems program. In this capacity he has such diverse duties as helping coordinate the admission of students, preparing the curriculum of the Advanced Study program, and working on the Green Islands project. MIT Portugal’s Director of Education Josh Jacobs recently spoke to Carlos about his work in Sustainable Energy Systems.
Josh Jacobs: What is your background?
Carlos Silva: I hold three degrees in Mechanical Engineering from IST, although my PhD work was more precisely in the area of optimizing supply chain management. I spent three years during the PhD conducting research at Siemens in Munich. Since the PhD, I have gained certification as a professional project manager. Professionally I have worked as a lecturer at the Escola Náutica, a polytechnic institute in Lisbon dedicated to commercial sailors, and also for two years at an IT startup company.
JJ: How did you get involved with the MIT Portugal Program? What about the Program was attractive to you?
CS: I was drawn by the opportunity to develop real connections to MIT, which of course is regarded as one of the best engineering schools in the world. The Program is hoping to take advantage of this connection to bring forward in Portugal a new way of thinking about engineering. I think one of the most critical aspects of this new approach is in the emphasis on working with industry.
JJ: What advice do you have for research engineers working with industry?
CS: When I worked at an IT company, having been in academia, it became clear that the biggest gap between academia and industry is the tendency for university researchers to develop models and knowledge without judging them on their utility and impact in the real world. For me, engineering is applying techniques to real problems. What I do in my research has to have a practical application. Engineering Systems takes this as an important aspect of its approach, looking at the social and economic aspects of large-scale systems, such as those we study in the Green Islands project .
JJ: How is Engineering Systems relevant to the Green Islands project?
CS: The project’s main objective is to develop the new energy system for the island of São Miguel in the Azores, taking advantage of the local renewable resources and optimizing the end-use energy efficiency. The Engineering Systems perspective is to look at the available technologies and integrate them in order to obtain the most cost-effective solution, with less impact on people’s way of living, and promoting new business opportunities for economic growth and development.
JJ: You will have the opportunity to work closely with MIT Prof. Richard de Neufville, a leading figure in Engineering Systems, during the coming year. How do you hope to take advantage of that?
CS: Yes, in the Fall I will spend six weeks working with Richard and other researchers at MIT in the area of flexibility, real options, and other Engineering Systems topics. Then, when Richard comes to Portugal in Spring 2009, I will continue to work with him and deepen our collaboration. For example, in terms of the Green Islands project, one of the goals is to look at the all the possible combinations of energy sources, evaluate the implementation costs and the long-term economical and environmental impacts, estimate evolution scenarios for energy demand and decide what is the best option for the new energy system.
JJ: How do you hope to develop professionally through the work you are doing in the MIT Portugal Program?
CS: What is appealing for me is the opportunity to be one of the first wave of Portuguese people who are truly grounded in Engineering Systems, at the level of formal methodologies. I hope in the medium term to teach using these methods in a way that can have a real impact in Portugal. |
