Alongside his role at New College, Francis is currently completing a DPhil at Magdalen College, supervised by Professor Christian Leitmeir. He is broadly interested in musical-poetic relationships across the Renaissance and Baroque, and his doctoral research investigates the tension between Petrarchism and theatricality in the sixteenth-century Italian madrigal, particularly exploring debates around pastoral and the nature of song in the madrigal’s development. His doctoral research is funded by the Clarendon Fund and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. For the academic year 2023-2024, he is a co-convenor of the Faculty of Music’s Research Colloquia series. He has written reviews for the journal Early Music.