Student Spotlight: Maria Fernanda Silva LLM ’24
A lawyer from Peru in the energy and environment practice, Maria Fernanda Silva has seized opportunities to meet and collaborate with peers around campus during her year in Duke Law's international LLM program.
Students in Duke Law’s LLM program often form tight bonds with their classmates, who hail from around the globe but are drawn together by the common experience of living and studying in the U.S.
For Maria Fernanda Silva LLM ’24, a lawyer from Peru who is earning a Certificate in Environmental and Energy Law along with her LLM, Duke Law has also offered the chance to network with professionals from outside the legal field.
This semester Silva took part in the Masters Impact Challenge, a campus-wide environmental competition that provided graduate students from across the university with the opportunity to collaborate on sustainability solutions. She was part of a prize-winning team called the “Green Barbies” that also included graduate students from Duke’s Global Health program, the Nicholas School of the Environment, and the Pratt School of Engineering.
“One of the things that determined my decision to come here was the interdisciplinary approach you can have as an international lawyer,” Silva said.
“Lawyers must understand how other professionals work so we can help them better with their needs.”
Master’s degree candidates are one of the fastest-growing student populations at Duke University, but because their degree programs are concentrated into a maximum of two years (Duke Law’s international LLM program is only one year), they often get little chance to interact with peers in other fields of study.
That’s what inspired a Pratt materials science professor to create the Masters Impact Challenge, a weekend-long competition in January designed to build community among students enrolled in any master’s program offered by Duke while also helping the university’s environmental sustainability initiatives.
For Silva, who plans to apply her studies of U.S. energy and environmental law and regulation to Peru’s own energy transition, it provided a perfect opportunity to collaborate with like-minded peers, all contributing expertise from different disciplines.
Forty graduate students, including Silva, entered the January competition. The nine teams had three days to develop and present a program that would improve sustainability efforts and awareness on campus by changing some aspect of student behavior. The solutions were judged by faculty, students and staff from Duke’s Sustainability Office, which sponsored the competition with the Office of the President, Student Affairs, and the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies.
The Green Barbies were awarded “Most Innovative Solution” for their idea to create a circular fashion ecosystem for Duke students that will mitigate some of the negative impacts of their clothing consumption. The three-part plan includes a sustainable Duke-branded clothing line, a quarterly "Devil's Thrifthouse" event where students can both donate and purchase used clothing, and fashion upcycling workshops. The team is currently working on implementing the plan on campus and are analyzing the market, opportunities, student involvement, and financing.
The recognition capped off a “fantastic weekend” of working with accomplished professional women from different career areas, Silva said.
Silva received her Bachelor of Laws in 2017 from the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima and began her career at Estudio Echecopar, a Baker McKenzie member firm, before going on to work as head of the legal department at various energy companies in Peru.
In addition to taking classes in Energy Law, Climate Change & Financial Markets, and Corporate Law & ESG as part of her LLM curriculum, Silva is also externing at the Environmental Defense Fund, where her duties include analyzing Duke Energy’s Carbon Plan, a proposal to meet both customer needs and carbon reduction targets during the transition to cleaner energy sources.
For Silva, the real reward of every new experience is the relationships she forms. That's why she has immersed herself in student life during her year at Duke Law, serving as the LLM representative for the Government and Public Service Society and participating in the Transactional Law Competition, where she and classmate Manuel Chavarriaga LLM ‘24 were named Outstanding LLM Team for their performance as the buyer in a purchase negotiation.
“Although I am proud of getting the award, what I take the most from this experience is having the opportunity to negotiate with my peers, who are excellent professionals from other parts of the world,” Silva said.