Francesca is currently completing her PhD with CSER, in collaboration with adidas AG. Her research aim is to understand how hybrid surfaces affect football players movements and shoe-surface interactions compared to natural and artificial turf. Her focus is in collecting field-based measurements of footballers during match-play and developing new methods to predict player kinematics and kinetics from multiple data sources including synchronised video, inertial sensor and GPS/LPS data. The results of Francesca's PhD will provide adidas AG with new knowledge and insights to develop new footwear specific for hybrid surfaces.

Prior to starting her PhD, Francesca gained a Master's degree in Bioengineering from the University of Padua, Italy, in 2017 with full marks and mention. During her studies, Francesca spent a semester abroad to complete her Master's thesis in the Structural Biomechanics Group at Imperial College London. The aim of the project was to develop the representation of the knee joint in a musculoskeletal model, to improve the prediction of knee joint reaction forces compared to in-vivo forces recoded using instrumented implants.

In addition to her studies, Francesca is a qualified athletics coach and has coached pole vault in her native Italy for several years.