Catarina Franco Jones is a PhD student in the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.  She is also affiliated to the Institute for Life Sciences. 

She graduated in 2023 from Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon, Portugal) with a Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineering. She then worked as a junior researcher at the same institution, where she employed piezoelectric nanoparticles as nanoantennaes to electrically induce selective apoptosis of breast cancer cells in vitro, under ultrasound stimulation. Her results were published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. During this time, she also acted as the Chair of the IEEE EMBS Student Chapter at Instituto Superior Técnico. She receved several awards including "Best Master Thesis in Oncology and Precision Medicine" in Portugal, and a Best Early Career Researcher Award at the Nanotexnology Conference 2024, Greece. She is skilled in cell culture, chemical synthesis, and nanomaterial characterisation. 

Her PhD research at the University of Southampton focuses on investigating electromechanical adaptation in breast cancer cells and cell clusters. She is gaining experience in microfabrication techniques, live-cell imaging, sensor development, and advanced signal/image processing methods.