Romana D’Annunzio was born on 14 January 1972. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, of Italian descent, she has Italian parents. She had an interest in stage acting from a young age.

She joined Blue Peter as its second Scottish presenter on 1 March 1996, after meeting the show’s editor at the Edinburgh Television Festival while working on a student film. During her tenure on Blue Peter, which lasted until 20 February 1998, D’Annunzio co-presented alongside Stuart Miles, Tim Vincent, Katy Hill, Richard Bacon, and Konnie Huq, gaining recognition for her enthusiasm for dressing up in costumes and her adventurous segments, including wing walking as a personal highlight.

D’Annunzio made her final Blue Peter appearance in 1998 to try acting. She decided to become a teacher while teaching English to teenagers in Rome for a year. She said: “It was there I was bitten by the teaching bug. There were a number of times when I was in the front of a class that I thought, ‘This isn’t so unlike presenting Blue Peter’.”

To qualify for teaching, D’Annunzio first completed an access course at Stevenson College in Edinburgh, followed by an MA in English Literature and Italian from the University of Edinburgh around 2004. She then pursued a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) in Secondary School Teaching at the University of Glasgow, graduating on 22 June 2009. D’Annunzio began her teaching career with a probationary post as a secondary school teacher of English in Edinburgh, Scotland, in autumn 2009. She later taught in schools in Glasgow and Edinburgh before relocating to Dubai.