Simona Francese is Professor of Forensic and Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. She holds a degree in Chemistry obtained from the University of Salerno, Italy, and a PhD in Chemical Sciences awarded in 2004 by the same University with a one year period spent at the University of Leeds, UK, thanks to a Marie Curie fellowship. She was a post doctoral fellow at the University of Leeds in 2004 and 2006, a research associate at the University of Florence, Italy (2006-2008). She took on a lectureship in biomedical sciences at Sheffield Hallam University in 2008, becoming Reader in 2014.

In her current role, she is the Head of the Bioanalytical Research Group and Deputy Head of the Centre for Mass Spectrometry Imaging. She is an expert in the development of MALDI MS Imaging applications and has pioneered its development for the analysis of latent fingermarks to profile offenders. More recently she has engaged in the development of MALDI MS based methods for the robust detection, provenance and mapping of blood in stains and marks publishing 30 papers (out of a total of 70) on these topics.

Her research has been implemented in police casework in UK and Europe and has been partly funded by the Home Office, West Yorkshire Police and The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, UK. She is one of the 60 invited members of the International Fingermark research Group and a member of the European Network of Forensic Sciences. Since March 2017, she is the Chair of the EU COST Action CA16101 MULTi-modal imaging of FOREnsic SciEnce Evidence (MULTI-FORESEE)- tools for Forensic Science’. She engages public dissemination at all levels and one recent endeavour was the delivery of a TED talk in Vancouver on molecular fingerprinting.