Francesca Messina, Ph.D., is a Research Environmental Engineer with The Water Institute’s Natural Systems Modeling and Monitoring group.

Her research focuses on coastal and deltaic biophysical modeling, mainly focusing on hydrodynamic and salinity dynamic. She is heavily involved in the numerical modeling being used by Louisiana to help refine the design of sediment diversions at Mid-Barataria and Mid-Breton along the Mississippi River. She is also heavily involved in developing and applying real-time forecasting systems, for both coastal and inland regions.

She developed her modeler experience during her graduate studies. Francesca obtained her Ph.D. in environmental engineering at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, in 2015 with a thesis entitled "Pore-scale simulation of micro and nanoparticle transport in porous media.” During her doctoral research, she worked with the Groundwater Engineering group, and her research was primarily devoted to modeling flow and colloidal particle transport and deposition in saturated porous media from a microscale point of view.

As a research scientist and environmental engineer, she also has skill sets that delve into environmental fluid dynamics, reclamation of polluted sites, pollutant dynamic, and sanitary and environmental engineering.