Currently serving as the lead scientific programmer at NASA's Earth Information Center, Before her role at NASA, Brenda contributed significantly to the field of interactive environments for science and education during her tenure as a contractor with the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. In 2022, she furthered her academic pursuits as a US Fulbright Scholar. She shared her expertise while teaching and conducting Extended Reality (XR) research at the School of Communication and Media Studies at the Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Portugal.
From 2017 to 2022, Brenda Lopez Silva was the director of the Realization Lab at the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In this role, she spearheaded developing and deploying innovative learning technologies and materials tailored for formal and informal educational settings.
Additionally, from 2016 to 2022, Brenda served as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Her contributions to the institution included establishing the immersive technologies program and instructing XR courses. Brenda has published her work in academic journals and presented her research at conferences internationally.