Francesca L. Falco, Italy

While working as an environmental lawyer, Francesca felt the need to complement her legal experience with an academic program that could provide her with a more multidisciplinary approach and thus enrolled in the Master at the School of Environment.

During her master, Francesca also completed an internship at the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (NPA), working with Dr. Shkedy Yehoshua, the NPA's Chief Scientist.  The Israel Nature and Parks Authority is the government organization that manages nature reserves and national parks in Israel. Francesca conducted research on the environmental policies for the prevention of invasive species' introduction, evaluating the cost-effectiveness and inter-institutional synergies of the policies that are currently employed in different countries around the world. The result of her research for the NPA will contribute to formulating a new national law to restrict the introduction of invasive species by either trade or personal import by travellers.

The internship at the NPA was both a pleasant experience and a very good occasion to look at policies from a broader point of view than what lawyers usually experience. It was also interesting to see how different characteristics of the countries affect their policies, which must thus be tailored to the specific context and environment in order to be effective. Comparative assessment is therefore an imperative first step for the development of any new policy and allows to identify the pros and cons of the various available options.

The whole experience was very interesting professionally. Because students at Porter were coming from very different backgrounds, the Master was also an enriching personal experience, as each student was contributing with his/her own knowledge and insights to class discussions and projects. 

Following the Master, Francesca is now considering continuing research with a multidisciplinary PhD on environmental policies and biodiversity conservation.