- Biomechatronics
Francesca Riccio-Ackerman is a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT's Biomechatronics Group and MIT's K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics, specializing in prosthetic and orthotic (P&O) care in post-conflict and humanitarian settings. She holds a PhD from MIT for research developing implementation science frameworks for P&O system strengthening in fragile states, bridging acute humanitarian response and long-term reconstruction. She combines rigorous mixed-methods research with partnership-based approaches to address health disparities in conflict-affected populations.
Francesca is a principal researcher on a multi-year, multimillion-dollar bilateral partnership between the MIT K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics, co-directed by Professor Hugh Herr, and Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health to strengthen the country's P&O sector. Her dissertation developed and evaluated a set of frameworks for assessing P&O systems, mapping barriers across individual, clinical, and policy levels, and sequencing sustainable system strengthening. The partnership spans workforce development, infrastructure investment, supply chain management, and service delivery expansion. It is training a national cohort of eleven P&O clinicians, one of whom now serves as the country's Clinical Head of P&O, and has established locally sourced supply channels that sustain clinical care and education. Together, these efforts are building a model for sustainable, government-led rehabilitation services in post-conflict settings.
Francesca also initiated the group's work on P&O in Palestine. Since 2024, she has studied the sector in Gaza and the West Bank in close collaboration with Palestinian colleagues based in and outside of Gaza, and she is a founding member of Limb & Life, an international research collective focused on locally led rehabilitation systems in Gaza. She is now developing a new MIT project, with a humanitarian medical organization, to extend her frameworks across Palestine, gathering data on P&O clinics in coordination with the Ministry of Health and other NGOs to strengthen the existing sector.
Her broader research portfolio includes clinical epidemiology examining amputation and limb injury patterns across historical and contemporary conflicts, providing comparative analysis essential for understanding the scale and nature of rehabilitation needs in these settings. Her work lies at the intersection of implementation science, global health systems research, and humanitarian health, with expertise spanning the full conflict lifecycle from acute crisis response through sustained system reconstruction.
Francesca holds a PhD from MIT, a Master's degree in International Healthcare Management, Economics and Policy from SDA Bocconi (Milan), and a Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Florida International University. Prior to her doctoral work, she contributed to advanced prosthetic arm development and worked as a Research Specialist in the MIT Media Lab, where she documented medically neglected communities and developed approaches to improve global P&O care alongside Dr. Hugh Herr.