Dr Mary De Silva
Dr Mary De Silva is Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser, Deputy Director for Health Protection Research, and Head of the Science and Engineering Profession in the Department of Health and Social Care.
As Deputy CSA, Mary supports Professor Lucy Chappell in all aspects of her role across Government and the devolved administrations, ensuring that policies and decisions are informed by the best scientific evidence and strategic long-term thinking. This includes advancing cross-governmental science and technology priorities, and setting scientific priorities for DHSC including the new Areas of Research Interest.
As Deputy Director for Health Protection Research, Mary is responsible for setting strategy on health protection research through NIHR including on pandemic preparedness, anti microbial resistance, climate and health and infectious diseases.
As Head of the Science and Engineering Profession, Mary leads on increasing DHSC's capacity to build and use scientific expertise and evidence in policy-making.
Prior to joining DHSC in Autumn 2021, Mary was Head of Population Health at the Wellcome Trust, and before that a Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine doing global health research.