wilson da silva is an australian science journalist publisher and documentary filmmaker who has worked in magazines newswires newspapers television and online he is a cofounder and the longserving former editorinchief of cosmos australias 1 science magazine in print ipad and online after departing as editorinchief of cosmos in 2013 he has stated that he plans to sit back and either get back into films or maybe write some bookshe has been an onair science reporter and producer for australian broadcasting corporation television a staff journalist on the age and the sydney morning herald newspapers a foreign correspondent for reuters science editor of abc online a correspondent for londons new scientist magazine and served as managing editor of the science magazines newton 21c and science spectrahe was the founding content director of the waterloo global science initiative and moderator of equinox summit energy 2030 the inaugural meeting at the perimeter institute for theoretical physics in canada that sought to apply science and technology to global problems from 200609 he was the founding editorinchief of the green lifestyle magazine an environmental consumer lifestyle title that was the countrys first carbon neutral magazine and produced on 100 recycled paperhe is the creator of hello from earth a webbased initiative to send messages from the public each just 160 characters in length to gliese 581d the nearest earthlike planet outside the solar system created as a science communication exercise for 2009 national science week in australia it collected nearly 26000 messages that were beamed by nasas canberra deep space communication complex on 28 august 2009the winner of 31 awards including editor of the year twice in 2006 and 2005 publishers australia excellence awards the 1997 human rights award for print journalism and the 1996 michael daley award for science journalism he has also written and produced two prizewinning documentaries including the diplomat the film that depicted nobel peace laureate jos ramoshorta and his eventually successful struggle to win independence for east timor the film won da silva and fellow producer sally browning the 2000 afi award for best documentary australian film institutea past president of the world federation of science journalists he is a former president of the australian science communicators and of the australian museum society and has served on the board of the australian society of authors he is one of the founders of science in the pub an innovative public communication initiative which was awarded the 2000 eureka prize for the promotion of sciencein october 2009 da silva created and hosted six science in the pub sessions for the quantum to cosmos festival at perimeter institute in waterloo ontario and also hosted two quantum to cosmos panels in his opening panel he asked nine physicists what keeps you awake at night he makes frequent appearances on radio and television in australia including breakfast tv shows sunrise and today and has spoken at many public lectures and conferences among them the unesco world science forum the euroscience open forum and japans annual science and technology in society forum he is scheduled to be among the first passengers of virgin galactics space service when flights begin in 2014 or 2015 born in brazil of portuguese ancestry he now lives in sydney australia