Miscellaneous Facts About me

On this page, I have a collection of random facts about me (things that you would otherwise not be able to know from my CV 😊).

Other Professors/Researchers in my (Silva) family

  • Carlos Matheus Silva Santos: Research Director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He is a mathematician who completed his PhD in mathematics at the age of 19 years old (yes, 19, not a typo!). He is my cousin.
  • Silvio Domingos Silva Santos: He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA, Brazil) in 2022 and a doctorate in Physics from the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (2017). He is also my cousin (and Matheus' brother).

My Academic Genealogy

Academic mentorship connects generations of researchers through their doctoral advisors. I was a Ph.D. advisee of Mehdi Mirakhorli, whose academic lineage traces back to Thomas Alva Edison.

  1. Me Joanna C. S. Santos Ph.D., Rochester Institute of Technology
  2. Portrait of Mehdi Mirakhorli Ph.D. advisor Mehdi Mirakhorli
  3. Portrait of Jane Cleland-Huang Jane Cleland-Huang Ph.D., University of Illinois Chicago
  4. Portrait of Carl K. Chang Carl K. Chang Ph.D., Northwestern University
  5. Portrait of Stephen S. Yau Stephen S. Yau Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  6. Portrait of Mac Elwyn Van Valkenburg Mac Elwyn Van Valkenburg Ph.D., Stanford University
  7. Portrait of Oswald Garrison Villard Jr. Oswald Garrison Villard Jr. Ph.D., Stanford University
  8. Portrait of Frederick E. Terman Frederick E. Terman Sc.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  9. Portrait of Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Harvard University
  10. Portrait of Arthur E. Kennelly Arthur E. Kennelly Self-taught; professor at MIT & Harvard
  11. Portrait of Thomas Alva Edison Mentor Thomas Alva Edison Kennelly's mentor at Edison's West Orange laboratory

Lineage adapted from Mehdi Mirakhorli's academic genealogy.

Curious Facts

  • 👩‍🎓 I joined the Computer Engineering program at Federal University of Sergipe (UFS) in 2009 (the year it was created). Since I finished all courses one semester earlier, I graduated alone (i.e., the 2013 "class" was just me lol).
    • I named the "class" of 2013 as Null (it made sense back then haha).
    • Since I graduated earlier than expected, I ended being the 1st alumni from the CE program at UFS.
  • 🎒I skipped one grade when I was 6 years old
    • That's why I was usually the youngest student in school/college
  • 🖥️ I wrote my first program when I was 13 years old (or 12? don't quite remember the exact year!)
    • A Quadratic Equation Calculator written in ILA - a language that had a pseudocode syntax that resembled with Portuguese
  • 🎸 I play guitar (not so regularly due to limited free time)
    • Learned to play when I was 12 years old
  • 🥁 I am learning to play drums
    • to be fair, I am being quite unable to regularly practice it given the sheer amount of work these days
  • 🎵 I was part of a pop/rock band while in middle/high school
    • I even did a cover of Avril Lavigne in 2008
  • 🎮 Counter Strike (CS2) is my favorite computer game
  • 🥋 I trained Krav Maga for two years