« I wanted to find something that would make sense to me, a place where I could use the things I learned while being in accordance with my own values and sensibilities. »

Where are you from  Clémentine ?

I grew up in Antibes, South East of France and left for Toulouse to study bioengineering at the INSA (National Institute of Applied Sciences). As any young people leaving high school (after a scientific baccalauréat for myself), I was not perfectly sure where I wanted to go, and I did not have a “professional project of becoming a biological engineer since I was five”.

However, I have always been fascinated about the power of nature, of life, and how all of this is working, starting from DNA to end up with such complex and various things as a human being or trees. So this is basically how I ended up doing these 5 years at INSA Toulouse from which I just graduated as Biological Engineer.

There, I have been learning all the fundamentals of molecular biology, metabolism, genetics, microbiology, enzymology and various topics in process engineering, as well as basics in management, business or communication for instance.

Taking part in various associations made me realize how much I like to be implied in projects that I care about, or how far a team can go by exchanging and learning from each other but also what I can do myself by simply being highly motivated and willing to learn always more.

After graduating, I started following the usual track and looked for a job. The main point was to find a way to somehow help the environment, work on topics related not only to biology but more to biodiversity and ecology. I studied life for all it has to teach us, for its broad diversity and its beauty. Therefore, it only made sense to me to somehow work on preserving it. But sustainability is not only about fighting for a plant specie endangered, this is much more complex. It is about considering the whole world, humanity as well. It is about understanding the complex balance between what we need, what we can have, and what we must preserve. This is about being able to provide Men with food, energy, transports, accommodations, to keep developing but without destroying.

This is about ensuring a safe future to the next generations, in a world as rich as we yet know it, and not on a dying planet.

What are your main motivations for this Post Master application ?

I studied biology because I’ve always been fascinated by the complexity and diversity of all life forms. Therefore, after studying life in space during my end-of-study internship, it appeared to me that I should first work at protecting life on Earth. I wanted to acquire real knowledge in environmental management and discover the various fields of application where I could find a job that makes sense to me. In the end, to really be able to act on this front, I felt I needed to learn much more on the global topic of environment.

On top of that, it appears highly consistent to me to learn about this in an international context, transition being a worldwide matter. I want to feel ready to exchange and deal with people from other countries and other cultures.

My professional project being with time to work as a project manager. I also wanted to develop my management skills, including decision making or project and team management. I believed the variety of experts’ background taking part in the formation could also help me in choosing a direction regarding the kind of structure I want to work in.

I certainly acquired some expertise in the biology field, but I did feel that I lacked knowledge in environment, ecology and biodiversity to achieve my personal goals.

This is what this program brought me, as well as an additional opening onto the world and its societal challenges. I wanted to feel more aware on all the key elements that go with the transition, and learn more about energies, climate, laws and regulations regarding the environment or the social and economic side of the transition for instance. The EnvIM program gave me the tools I needed to then evolve by myself in the field I care about. Finally, I also loved the fact that learning took place in the form of team work on many study cases and projects.

I very much liked the idea of interacting with students from various backgrounds and countries, illustrating perfectly the context in which I should evolve later.

What are your professional goals and career project ?

My professional goal now is first to work in favor of the environment, directly or indirectly. I want to find a way to combine my knowledge and interest for biology to my environmental values. Currently an intern at Egis in environmental consultancy, I would like to specialize in ecology consultancy to work on biodiversity protection, through species inventories and the development and application of ARC measures.

I want to work in something that makes sense and that can somehow have an impact.