Dr Caroline Francis is a Lecturer and Program Manager of Industrial Design (Honours) at RMIT University, Melbourne Australia, and a Chief Investigator on the Fight Food Waste CRC REDUCE program. She is an established Industrial Design academic with over 20 years industry experience who has designed and managed for some of the leading design consultancies throughout Australia and China including Infinity Design, Outerspace and the Food Innovation Centre of Mondelez Australia which she supported the establishment at Monash University. Caroline holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne (Protecting Australian brand through design) and a Master of Applied Science (Design education research) from QUT University.

With her colleagues Associate Professor Soumitri Varadarajan and Wil Dim, they have been awarded the 2022 Vice Chancellor Teaching Award of Excellence for Innovative Design Pedagogy and the 2022 ACUADS Teaching Excellence Award.

Her research interests are in radical innovations, progressive design education and learner-centred pedagogy, sustainability and food waste mitigation, consumer perceptions and design-led trust, cross-cultural studies, protecting the Australian premium brand through design, medical product development and holistic care, and entrepreneurship and commercialisation. Caroline works in qualitative methods and quantitative research analysis to gain wider reach and deeper insights for industry and social impact.