Chartered Engineer and disaster relief specialist Dame Jo da Silva CEng MICE MIStructE FREng is this week’s guest on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Desert Island Discs’.

Recognised in the 2021 Queen’s New Year’s Honours List with a DBE for her contribution to humanitarian relief, Jo is Global Sustainable Development Director at Arup. She established Arup International Development (AID) in 2006, as a not-for-profit business that sits within the global engineering and consulting firm. AID works with local groups, governments and NGOs to reduce risk, enhance resilience and improve the quality of life of vulnerable communities around the world.

In response to being awarded DBE, Jo said “I’ve always been driven by the desire to do something practical to contribute to society and my technical engineering knowledge has helped me do this.”

On ‘Desert Island Discs’, she discusses her life, her engineering career, and the eight records she'd want with her if she were a castaway on a desert island; available now on the BBC website.

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Kate Webster, Engineering Council – kwebster@eng.org.uk, 020 3206 0567

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