Francesca Fassbender is a PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University, where she researches environmental peacebuilding and environmental warfare. Her work integrates diverse methodological approaches, including feminist and interpretive frameworks, experimental behavioral designs, and large-scale quantitative analysis.

Supervised by Professor Udi Sommer, her current research examines the incentives and rationalizations that shape military actors’ engagement in environmentally destructive practices during armed conflict. In a complementary project, she investigates the potential of virtual reality interventions to foster environmental peacebuilding and promote pro-environmental and cooperative attitudes.

Francesca’s professional background spans foreign and security policy as well as environmental cooperation, informed by roles in NGOs and think tanks in Germany and Israel. She has published in leading academic journals and policy outlets on topics including environmental diplomacy in the Middle East.

Since October 2025, she has been a Green Foreign Policy Fellow at the Heinrich Böll Foundation Thessaloniki Office, where she examines post-war recovery as a critical arena for Green foreign and feminist foreign policy.