Our guest, Maria Beatriz Silva holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon (ULisboa) and is currently an Associate Professor with tenure at the Manufacturing and Industrial Management Unit of the Mechanical Engineering Department of IST. She is also an integrated member of the Associated Laboratory for Energy, Transports and Aeronautics (LAETA), member of the Pedagogical Council of IST, and co-coordinator of the Gender Balance group at IST. 

Her pedagogical activity includes teaching and coordinating manufacturing related courses of the Integrated Master Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Integrated Master Degree in Aerospace Engineering, Integrated Master Degree in Materials Engineering. She has also been supervising and co-supervising several Master and PhD students, and postdoc fellows. Her scientific activity covers the areas of experimental and numerical simulation of metal forming, being co-author of 130 papers published in international journals with referee, book chapters and communications in proceedings of international conferences, corresponding to more than 2000 citations on SCOPUS, and a h-factor of 23. 

In 2008 received the Donald Julius Groen Prize from the Structural Technology and Materials Group of Institution of Mechanical Engineers – IMechE (UK), in 2009 received a merit distinction from the Technical University of Lisbon (UTL), in 2010 received an honourable mention in the Young Researchers Prize from UTL/Deloitte and in 2016 received the 2015 SAGE/CEGB Best Paper Award by the Editor and Editorial Board of the Journal of Strain Analysis for Engineering Design.