Politecnico di Milano

is Associate Professor of Computer Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, where she teaches multimedia technology and HCI at the School of Computing Engineering and the School of Industrial Design.
Her main research has focused on methods and tools for designing web based multichannel hypermedia, user experience evaluation, tangible and motion-based interaction, in various application domains including cultural heritage, e-commerce, e-learning, e-tourism.
Franca is vice director of HOC Lab, leading the research activities related to ICT enhanced education for children with special needs.
She has (co)authored over 100 papers published at international venues. She has been member of the program committee of major conferences in hypertext, multimedia, HCI, interaction design, e-learning, e-culture. She has been program chair of ICHIM 2001 and ACM IDC 2009, the most important conferences worldwide respectively on cultural heritage and interaction design for children. From 1997 to 1999 she served as European Chair of SIG-WEB (ACM Special Interest Group on Hypermedia & Web) and is currently Chair of the Italian Chapter of ACM SIGCHI (ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction). She has participated in over 16 EC funded projects (INDOC, SUPERDOC, MINER, HYTEA, HYPERTOUR, SITMOON, UWA, OPENDRAMA, VNET5, HELP, MINERVA, ADAPT, TELL, E-Len, EDUCOMICS, MAPS) and is currently Coordinator of two EC funded projects:  M4ALL (Motion Based Interaction for all – Life Long Learning program) and “Playful Interaction of the Cloud” (EIT – ICT Lab Program). She is member of the review panel for European Research council (ERC) Starting Grants (2011-2013).

last update: march 2013