Francesco is a PhD student at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). He completed his studies in Molecular Biology at the University of Padova. For his master thesis he worked on the hormonal regulation of shoot apical meristem maintenance at the Technical University of València. Currently, his project focuses on the identification and functional characterization of genes involved in water sensing mechanisms in Arabidopsis thaliana, as part of the ERC Synergy project HYDROSENSING.