Margot Francini is a PFAS force

Over the past three years, Margot Francini ’25 has been a force behind some of the North Carolina Collaboratory’s most sustained student engagement in research on a group of chemicals known as PFAS. PFAS is an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, often described as “forever chemicals.”

What began as a summer internship after her first year at Carolina evolved into a defining part of her college experience, shaping her academic focus, future aspirations and the way she thinks about the intersection of science, policy and public health.

Francini first learned about the Collaboratory through Carolina’s EcoStudio internship matching program. She was already familiar with PFAS and environmental advocacy, having interned with community-focused groups like the Haw River Assembly and the N.C. Conservation Network. The Collaboratory offered something she had not yet experienced: a direct bridge between scientific research and policy impact.

“It seemed like a place where I could learn about the intersection of research and community concerns. And bring that to the legislature in a really organized, strategic way,” she recalled.

Under the mentorship of research director Greer Arthur, Francini joined the Collaboratory’s PFAS intern team. Her first focus was on proposed changes to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, commonly known as Superfund, and assessing destruction technologies for PFAS chemicals. In her second year, Francini mapped the life cycle of aqueous film-forming foam, a PFAS-containing substance commonly used on military bases, airports and firefighting training facilities.

Francini, seen presenting her PFAS research, said her experience with the Collaboratory helped her see the connection between science and policy. (Submitted photo)

Francini’s deep dive into PFAS policy also had a ripple effect. It sparked her interest in learning how scientific findings are generated. That curiosity led her to the lab of professor Barbara Turpin at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. With the Collaboratory’s support, Francini joined Turpin’s team, where she designed an air sampler, collected and extracted samples, analyzed them using mass spectrometry and wrote a thesis based on her findings.

“Doing that gave me a new appreciation for the rigor of scientific research,” she said. “I wanted to understand the process that underpins the findings we use to support policy. It takes so much time and collaboration.”

This dual experience — pairing policy analysis with scientific lab work — has set Francini apart. Her research spanned Environmental Protection Agency standards, stakeholder interviews, cost-benefit analyses and regulatory design. Through her internship with the Collaboratory, Francini explored PFAS from multiple angles: scientific, regulatory and community based.

The ability to consider a topic holistically and move fluidly between lab and policy settings earned her recognition and led to opportunities to impart her expertise. Francini joked that she completed a hat trick, having earned recognition in the Institute for the Environment’s Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Sustainability Research three times. She also presented at the 2024 NC BREATHE Conference, engaged with state agencies such as the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and even volunteered to aid sample collection for the GenX exposure study in her hometown of Pittsboro.

These moments, she said, were when she realized she had something meaningful to contribute. “It’s been funny. My friends send me news articles about PFAS now. I’ve kind of become ‘the PFAS girl,’” she laughed.

Next, Francini will pursue a Master of Public Administration in environmental science and policy at Columbia University, a program that, like her Collaboratory experience, sits at the intersection of research and public service. “I’m still not choosing between science and policy,” she said. “I want to understand how to bring them together more effectively. And the Collaboratory has absolutely inspired that.”