Francesca is a DPhil student in the Rehm Lab, interested in the development and application of orthogonal replication systems for accelerated evolution, with the potential to address fundamental evolutionary questions as well as real-world sustainability challenges. 

She studied Biology (BSc) and Molecular Biotechnology (MSc) at Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and University of Pisa, where her interests in microbiology, synthetic biology, and their environmental applications took shape. She interned in the Persat Lab at EPFL, working on the interaction between Pseudomonas aeruginosa and lung macrophages; and in the Silver Lab at Harvard Medical School, where she focused on engineering tardigrade-derived desiccation-protecting proteins. She then carried out her master’s thesis in the Stocker Lab at ETH Zürich, where she used microfluidics to study the chemotactic behaviour of beneficial plant bacteria on leaf surfaces. 

In her spare time, you can find her playing volleyball, reading, or trying to keep her plants alive.