Daniela Silva holds a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the Portuguese Catholic University, a Master's degree in Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy from the University of Aveiro, and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and International Relations from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of NOVA University Lisbon.

She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2024–2025) within the Integral Human Development Programme at the Portuguese Catholic University, where she developed the project “Family, Birth Rates and Sustainability: Priorities and Expectations of the Portuguese Population.”

She is currently the Course Coordinator and Lecturer for Social Security, Labour and Family Policies in the Master's in Public Policy programme. She is also an Assistant Researcher at the Institute for Political Studies (IEP-UCP), where her main responsibility is coordinating and promoting the Public Policy Research Hub. In addition to teaching in the Master's programme in Public Policy, she is an integrated researcher at the Research Centre of the Institute for Political Studies of the Portuguese Catholic University (CIEP-UCP).

Her main research interests include public policy, family policy, labour policy, demography, and political theory. Since September 2020, she has also written a monthly opinion column for Jornal Económico.