Dr. Silvia L. Garzoli's main field of interest is the dynamics of the ocean and its relation to climate. As a sea going oceanographer, her main field of expertise is in the use of long-term moored instrumentation to study the oceanic circulation and its relation to climate. For a large part of her career, she conducted and directed national and international research programs in several regions of the world Ocean. This includes the tropical Atlantic, the Brazil Malvinas Confluence in the South Western Atlantic, and the study of the Indonesian throughflow at the strait of Makassar, the Benguela Current system south of South Africa, and the North Brazil Current north of Brazil.

In addition to the analysis of the observations that she collected during her research expeditions, Dr. Garzoli has also worked with the product of numerical models to further analyze the data and understand the physics of the processes involved.

Dr. Garzoli is currently involved in different projects directed to monitor and study the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and the meridional heat transport in the Atlantic.