She has a Degree in Biological Sciences in 1998, has in the past served as a researcher, tutor and assistant professor of Ecology at the Department of Animal Biology and Ecology of the University of Cagliari. Since April 2013 she is an Italian Representative of the Mars Initiative. She wrote and published a 4-book hard science fiction series set on Mars and titled "Deserto rosso" in Italian. She later translated it into English under the title Red Desert. Deserto rosso omnibus published in December 2013. Thanks to this series, in 2014 she was awarded by Wired Italia as one of the 10 best Italian independent authors, was a guest at the Turin International Book Fair and at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and became a popular science fiction author in Italy. She has also written three crime thrillers set in London, Il mentore, Sindrome, and Oltre il limite, which are book 1, 2 and 3 in the Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy. Il mentore was translated as The Mentor in English and is an international bestseller. The Mentor hit #1 on the Kindle Store in United States, UK, and Australia in October 2015, selling 200,000 copies in a matter of months. She is a member of the International Thriller WritersOrganization. This is an organization that only authors with at least one book published by a recognized publisher can join, in Monticelli's case her novel published by AmazonCrossing. Her latest release in English is Kindred Intentions an action-packed British thriller with a romantic twist. Since the 2015-2016 academic year Monticelli has been teaching a class about author-publishing at the University of Insubria.
Publications
In Italian
Anjce, comic book by Miriam Blasich, preface by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli, ProGlo Edizioni
Interventi di bonifica e condizioni ecologiche del Canale di Terramaini, Cottiglia M., Masala M. L., Monticelli R. C., Rendiconti Seminario della Facoltà di Scienze – Università degli Studi di Cagliari, 1999.
Interventi di bonifica nello “stagno” di Sa Praja. Caratteristiche ecologiche, Cottiglia M., Masala M. L., Monticelli C., Righini W., Seminario della Facoltà di Scienze - Università degli Studi di Cagliari, 2000.
Impatto ambientale da piscicoltura in gabbie galleggianti nella Baia di Figari , Cottiglia M., De Miranda M. A., Loffredo F., Masala M. L., Pergent Martini C., Pergent G. e Monticelli C., Atti del Congresso “Environnement et Identité en Méditerranée” – DRE, Université de Corse, 2000.
Arricchimento organico e meiofauna bentica in un ambiente marino costiero, M. Cottiglia, M.L. Masala e C. Monticelli, Rendiconti Seminario Facoltà di Scienze - Università di Cagliari, 2001.
