Francesca Parmigiani
Principal Researcher Manager
News & features
Awards | Optica
Francesca Parmigiani elected as a 2026 Optica Fellow
Fellows are Optica members who have served with distinction in the advancement of optics and photonics. Francesca was elected for her pioneering contributions to the field of high-speed optical communications and optical signal processing.
In the news | Forward Future
Future Forward Live – AOC, Part 1
Francesca Parmigiani, Principal Research Manager at Microsoft Research Cambridge (@MSFTResearch), on the moment her team realized they were onto something big. “We ran a small version of these banking problems on the actual hardware and saw great accuracy. That was…
In the news | Forward Future
Future Forward Live – AOC, Part 2
What does an analog optical computer do? Francesca Parmigiani, Principal Research Manager at Microsoft Research Cambridge (@Microsoft), has the answer. “When you start learning a new programming language, you begin with a ‘Hello World.’ For us, that meant recognizing handwritten…
In the news | IBM Think
Computing with light offers two paths forward for AI
Light is edging into roles once reserved for electricity in computing. As researchers race to ease the growing energy and performance strain that AI puts on data centers, some are experimenting with using photons instead of electrons to process information, an…
In the news | Microsoft Source
Microsoft’s analog optical computer cracks two practical problems and shows AI promise
A small Microsoft Research team had lofty goals when it set out four years ago to create an analog optical computer that would use light as a medium for solving complex problems. From the beginning, they wanted to build it using…
In the news | Science News Explores
A new frontier awaits — computing with light
In the guts of a new type of computer, a bunch of tiny LEDs emit a green glow. Those lights have a job to do. They’re performing calculations. Right now, this math is telling the computer how to identify handwritten…
In the news | Microsoft Innovation
Building a computer that solves practical problems at the speed of light
There’s an old saying: When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Sometimes referred to as “the law of the instrument,” that hammer-and-nail idea is a common pitfall in research; when you’re not…
In the news | University of Southampton, Optoelectronics Research Centre
Dr Francesca Parmigiani PhD in the Optical Fibre Communications Group, 2006
"Being able to work in a very dynamic environment, with world-class experts in many aspects of photonics, allowed me to flourish and succeed as a well-recognised scientific expert in my field, opening many career doors." What were your highlights of…