In depth: my journey

Community leadership & early impact

With a background in environmental engineering and years in the humanitarian sector, I’ve worked on interventions that respond to humanitarian crises, natural hazards, environmental pollution, and urban development.

My community journey began in 2015 through volunteer programs in education and environmental sustainability with JCI and AIESEC. As director of the second phase of the Keep Yaoundé Clean campaign, I mobilized over 500 participants, local authorities, and partners for a one‑day action that removed more than 10 tons of plastic from city drains.

Master’s research — Flood risk in Yaoundé

Motivated by those experiences, I dedicated my Master’s thesis to flood risk in Yaoundé, Cameroon. We examined how uncontrolled urbanization and land‑use change intensify flood risk, using remote sensing and hydrologic simulations with HEC‑HMS.

WASH delivery — from plans to builds

After graduating, I focused on WASH delivery in vulnerable communities: planning and coordinating emergency interventions, producing conceptual designs, supervising construction of water points and latrines, and managing emergency kit distributions. Field work revealed sharp disparities in underserved neighborhoods, aggravated by weak drainage and plastic‑clogged channels.

Doctoral research — SPD, ML & river systems

Those realities shaped my doctoral research: an integrated approach to flood‑risk mapping and management that accounts for sediment plastic debris (SPD) and the social characteristics of poor urban slums in Yaoundé. We combine remote sensing and machine learning with field monitoring and hydraulic modeling (RRI, HEC‑RAS).

Looking ahead, I’m studying how plastic accumulations reshape river morphology, running flume experiments on debris transport, and developing sediment‑management strategies for dams.