Francesca Messina, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist with The Water Institute of the Gulf’s Natural Systems Modeling group.

Dr. Messina earned her Ph.D. in environmental engineering at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, in April 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 where her research was mainly devoted to modelling flow and colloidal particle transport phenomena in saturated porous media from a microscale point of view.

As an environmental engineer, Dr. Messina has expertise in environmental fluid dynamics, reclamation of polluted sites, pollutant dynamic, sanitary and environmental engineering, particle transport in porous media, and groundwater engineering.

At the Institute, 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 heavily involved in the Real Time Forecasting project, for both coastal applications and flood protection.

She received both her B.S. and M.S. degrees in environmental engineer from Politecnico di Torino, Italy.