Florence Cassassuce

Link to resume

Personal Statement

Hello, smiling friends,

Let’s start this statement with a poem dedicated to our organization:

                        Sunsmile

                        Schoolgirls ran down the hill without their wood pile

                        Camels climbed to the top of the sand dune to measure the sunshine

                        Belly dancers started singing “the solar oven is mine”

                        The dude said his couscous never tasted so fine

                        Hey, this is the warm life at Sunsmile farm!

My background? I started with four years of pure ¨Science¨, that is to say theoretical math and physics, at Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France. For my 20^th birthday, I decided to travel as far as I could from France. I landed in the beautiful country of New Zealand  and there I worked one year on geotechnical engineering and earthquake liquefaction problems for the University of Canterbury and the Christchurch City Council. Back to Paris, I studied civil engineering at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees and I joined a one-year training program in a structural engineering company specialized in stay-cable bridges. Finally I decided to obtain an international degree and applied to UC Berkeley where I  completed a Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering in May 2004.

Berkeley, as for many, changed my life. Environmental Engineering is what I love to do, and I’ll tell you why. Our future resides in the harmonious combination of nature and technology. By observing natural systems, there is an infinity of wonderful technologies that can be invented.

For now, I am becoming an expert on water. What interests me is to purify water with plants. Also of interest to me is building houses where architecture, plants and water are harmonized toward a green design. At a larger scale, I wish to create sustainable communities with smart landscape planning for climatic comfort, self-sufficient renewable energies, waste reuse for gas production, and water recycling using plants.

That’s the theory. The practice has been my work in Mexico since May 2004. I first came to Baja California with a team from Engineers-Without-Frontiers to study the water quality in rural communities. After the project ended, I decided to stay and joined a local environmental non-profit organization to continue working on water quality. I am now the project director and I organize my activities and funding. Between the arsenic contamination in water, the presence of fecal bacteria leading to widespread diarrhea, and the saltwater intrusion in overexploited aquifers, there is much to do in the next few years on this project. By working with the rural school system, the ministry of environment and the public health department, I hope this work will become a model for other water projects in developing countries. And I will most surely offer the expertise I am gaining to serve the interests of our young Sunsmile organization!

To conclude this statement, I’d like to share my vision of rural development. All around the world, people migrate to the cities. That can work. If well planned, future cities can be “green”, energy-efficient, people-friendly, not so car-intensive, and very culturally interesting. But from villages perched in the Moroccan mountains to fishing camps on Japanese islands, there are also people who want to live in isolated areas. There are the guardians of a precious local knowledge that ranges from medicinal plants, to building techniques, and traditional food recipes. I wish to develop appropriate technologies for these isolated communities, so that their people can live sustainably without being connected a power grid, or a water or gas distribution system. I will try to help Sunsmile achieve this goal,  so that we invent more practical solutions for cooking, for disinfecting water, for recycling waste… and many more great inventions in the years to come. Keep on traveling with us!

Link to Florence's resume