Florence has a PhD in Biological Science from the University of Cambridge. Her PhD was jointly funded by the Medical Research Council, UK, and the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She also has a BSc in Food Science and Technology and an MSc in Applied Human Nutrition, both from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Before moving to the UK in 2013, she practiced as a Public Health Nutritionist at Baylor-Uganda, where she designed and implemented a pioneering programme integrating nutrition and food security into HIV care services, at over 300 government health facilities in 25 districts in Uganda.
Prior to joining the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), Florence was an Investigator Scientist in the MRC Nutrition and Bone Health Research Group, at MRC Human Nutrition Research Unit (renamed the MRC Elsie Widdowson Laboratory in 2018, permanently closed in December 2020).