Francesca Danesi, a graduate in Food Science and Technology and a PhD in Food Science, is an associate professor at the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences of the University of Bologna. She has collaborated with Prof. Alessandra Bordoni, coordinator of the Human Nutrition Unit, since 2003. She has been a teaching assistant of ‘Food Science’ and 'Human Nutrition' since 2004. She was a lecturer of 'Micronutrients and bioactive compounds', part of the course of 'Human Nutrition', in 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 academic years. She teaches 'Biochemistry' courses for the bachelor in Viticulture and Enology and the bachelor in Animal Production.
In 2005 she achieved a professional license as Food Technologist. In 2008 she spent six months as visiting PhD student at the Department of Nutrition at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) under the supervision of Prof. Lynnette R. Ferguson, head of the 'Nutrigenomics New Zealand' research group.
She was awarded a special mention for scientific merit in 2009 and a young researcher award in 2011 by the Italian Society of Human Nutrition, of which she has been a member since 2004. In 2014 she won 'Le Tecnovisionarie' award by the Women and Technologies Association in the category 'WomenFuture', intended for young researchers in the fields of food and nutrition.
In 2017 she obtained the national scientific qualification for associate professor in Applied Dietary Sciences (academic recruitment field 06/D2' Endocrinology, Nephrology, Food and Wellness Science', academic discipline MED/49 'Food and Dietetic Sciences'). He is a member of the Italian Society of Human Nutrition advisory board for the three-year period 2019–2021.
She is working on several topics related to human nutrition and nutritional biochemistry, and she published more than forty full papers in national and international journals and books. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal' Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity'.
She participates in different national and international projects; she has worked on the project PATHWAY-27 - funded by the European Commission and coordinated by Prof. Bordoni - focused on food bioactive compounds and health claims. She was coordinating the Project "New Insight and Knowledge on anti-inflammatory Effectiveness of dietary phenolics (NIKE)" funded under the Programme' Scientific Independence of young Researchers' (SIR) of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR), designed to support young researchers at the start of their independent research activity (awarded grant: 428,210 Euros; 55 projects selected among 1,909 proposals in all fields of Life Sciences - success rate <3%).
