Eduardo Cattani Silva received a bachelor’s degree in Control and Automation Engineering and a master’s in Electrical Engineering from Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil, in 2021 and 2024, respectively. His graduate research focused on the research and development of silicon carbide (SiC) inverters for automotive powertrains. In 2024, he joined the McMaster Automotive Resource Centre (MARC) at McMaster University, where he is working toward a Ph.D. in electrical engineering under the supervision of Dr. Ali Emadi. His doctoral work is focused on hybrid switch inverters for efficient, cost-effective propulsion of electrified vehicles. Throughout his career, Eduardo has actively contributed to electrified vehicle powertrain development in academic and industrial domains through journal and conference publications and research projects with industrial partners.
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Eduardo’s engineering journey began in Control and Automation Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), where he applied computer vision and mapping techniques to autonomous vehicle competitions with the Taura Bots team and to georeferencing projects for industrial partners. Solving these real-time control problems sparked a deeper curiosity about the power hardware behind dynamic systems, prompting him to explore power electronics and motor drive control and join UFSM’s Grupo de Eletrônica de Potência e Controle (GEPOC).
During his M.Sc. at GEPOC (2021–2024), Eduardo actively contributed to the technical development of a multi-phase silicon carbide inverter in a project with an industrial partner to electrify an internal combustion engine vehicle. He oversaw semiconductor selection, PCB layout, gate drive design, CAN-based communications, and system-level testing. He built extensive expertise in wide-bandgap inverter design and validation throughout this process. Furthermore, his studies also covered advanced control of non-sinusoidal permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM), providing a solid background in motor control.
Since 2024, Eduardo has been pursuing a Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Ali Emadi at McMaster University’s Automotive Resource Centre (MARC). His research focuses on hybrid switch inverter architectures that combine silicon and wide-bandgap devices to maximize efficiency while containing cost—an appealing proposition for industry adoption. Immersed in MARC’s multidisciplinary ecosystem, he is broadening his knowledge across the entire electric powertrain stack, from battery systems and inverters to electric machine design and contributing to drivetrain validation on MARC’s dynamometer test cells.
