Wilson da Silva

Wilson da Silva is an award-winning science journalist, editor, and filmmaker based in Sydney, renowned for long-form storytelling across science, technology, business, politics, climate change, and human rights.

For nine years, Wilson was Editor-in-Chief of Cosmos, the visually rich popular science magazine he co-founded and built into Australia’s #1 science title across print, iPad, and digital platforms. Under his leadership, Cosmos won 48 major awards, including two Magazine of the Year titles, two Editor of the Year awards, and four National Press Club prizes. He also led the development of the highly interactive Cosmos iPad edition, named one of Apple’s “Best of 2012” apps.

As co-founder of Cosmos Media, Wilson oversaw editorial strategy across 24 print and digital titles. Among them was G: The Green Lifestyle Magazine, Australia’s first carbon-neutral magazine and the first produced entirely on post-consumer recycled paper. Under his direction, G won seven awards, including Consumer Magazine of the Year and the Sydney Lord Mayor’s Sustainability Award.

He conceived and led the internationally viral Hello from Earrth campaign for National Science Week, inviting the public to send goodwill messages to the exoplanet Gliese 581d. The initiative reached over 1,000 media outlets globally, appeared in more than 11,000 blogs, and gathered nearly 26,000 messages from 190 countries in just 10 days. The messages were transmitted by NASA and are scheduled to arrive in December 2029.

Wilson’s most celebrated documentary is The Diplomat, which followed Nobel Peace Prize laureate José Ramos-Horta during East Timor’s struggle for independence. Shot over a pivotal 18 months, the film won the AFI Award for Best Documentary, screened at 32 international festivals, and received five additional awards.

He also worked as a reporter and producer for ABC TV’s science program Quantum. His documentary Passing the Bug: The End of Antibiotics? premiered the season and won the Bronze Medal at the London International Medical Film Competition.

Wilson began his career at The Sydney Morning Herald and later worked as a technology writer for The Age. He spent five years as a foreign correspondent for Reuters, covering global business, diplomacy, and technology. Assignments included the Non-Aligned Summit in Jakarta, the Johnston Atoll chemical weapons incineration facility in the North Pacific, and postings in the Canadian and Australian parliamentary press galleries.

He has served as founding managing editor of Newton and Science Spectra, managing editor of 21C Magazine, and science news editor for ABC Online.

His freelance work has appeared in The Australian, Australian Financial Review, South China Morning Post, Australian Geographic, New Scientist, Nature, and many other publications. His writing has been featured in The Best Australian Science Writing anthologies in 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2020.

As Content Director for the Waterloo Global Science Initiative’s Equinox Summit, Wilson designed and chaired the inaugural Energy 2030 summit, broadcast nationally in Canada, and edited the resulting policy blueprint.

At the University of New South Wales, he served as Communications Advisor to the Faculty of Engineering, significantly increasing global media coverage across outlets including CNN, BBC News, Reuters, Bloomberg, Xinhua, CCTV, Technology Review, and Wired. He launched the award-nominated magazine Ingenuity, established a Journalist-in-Residence program, and created the Ada Lovelace Medal celebrating women in engineering.