Country Experience: Afganistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, Sierra Leone.
Susana is a specialist in water resources management, water supply and sanitation with special focus on faecal sludge management (FSM). She has more than 15 years of engineering experience, including over 12 years working in low-income countries and fragile states. Her experience includes multiple categories of humanitarian crisis and response, protracted disasters, post emergency planning and long-term development.
During her professional humanitarian years, she has worked for three organisations, namely Oxfam GB, CRS and UNHCR; her focus has always been on WASH and water governance, and now also increasingly in FSM. She has extensively researched the intersection between the pure technical engineering solution aspect and the social component in water and wastewater resource management. For the past five years, Susana has worked as an adviser for private sector companies and humanitarian agencies (United Nations and INGO sectors).
Susana also has a long history of working in rural, peri-urban and urban contexts, including a wide range of engineering projects, such as water and wastewater management systems recovery and upgrade, disaster and climate resilience, and supporting water utility and institutional reforms. Susana has worked in the world’s most austere environments.
Susana’s initial degrees were Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Management Engineering from Valencia Polytechnic University and TECNUN University. After a few years working for the private sector, she upgraded her studies by coursing a Social Science Master degree in Humanitarian Assistance, NOHA, with her thesis done on the environmental impact in the fragile and conflict affected country of Democratic Republic of the Congo.In addition to her qualification, Susana holds a 2nd qualification of Water and Wastewater Engineering from the University of Cranfield, obtained in 2018 with her thesis based on Anaerobic Digestion.