Q&A with Alice Cunha da Silva

摘要

For our first international interviewee, we couldn't have hoped for a more impressive individual than Alice Cunha da Silva, a member of the executive committee of Women in Nuclear Brazil. Alice has studied across the globe, speaks four languages and has an incredible passion for nuclear. Having been a panel co-chair at IYNC 2020, Alice is well versed in international events and is now part of the YGN's COP26 delivery team. I have a Computer Science degree and I worked in a nuclear company fixing computers and occasionally going to the power plant to look at my company employees' computers there. That sparked my curiosity. What is inside that building? I knew I wanted to do engineering, so when I was applying for university I went for nuclear engineering out of curiosity. I started off knowing nothing about it but I fell in love with it as it touches everything: medicine; space exploration; power supply. I dived straight in headfirst, went after every opportunity and got as involved as possible. One of those opportunities was organising an academic week for nuclear engineering. Westinghouse was a sponsor and a professor from Penn State University was a speaker. At the time, Brazil had a scientific mobility programme, sending STEM students to study a year in other counties. So, I took the opportunity to go to the USA and study at Penn State, got an internship at Westinghouse and when I came back [to Brazil] I was invited to apply for the Brazil office, where I've been ever since.