Sandra Imbeault
Ph.D. Water sciences, 2005
Certified chemist and microbiologist, Water Management Department, Laboratories Division,
Ville de Laval
“The INRS is a great family. I’d like to thank everyone I’ve worked with, and I hope to have the pleasure of brainstorming together again in the future.”
Originally from the Gaspésie, where she devoured the classic novels of every library that crossed her path, Sandra Imbeault is a citizen in the city. Trained in microbiology and philosophy, she is interested in and reflects on the role of the scientist in society. With a doctorate in water sciences from INRS, she has been responsible for microbiological analyses of Laval’s drinking water network since 2010. Curious and involved by nature, the citizen, the philosopher and the scientist are three interwoven facets of her being, like the ancient Greeks.
After completing a DEC in analytical chemistry at Rimouski CEGEP and a bachelor’s and master’s degree in microbiology applied to dentistry at Université Laval, she started looking for a professor to supervise her thesis on bacteriophages. It was a television report on ‘The Nature of Things’ about bacterial viruses that inspired her to try to prevent infections in farmed fish. She wanted to develop a preventive treatment by adding viruses to the water in the transport cages, specifically targeting the bacterial populations present in the water as the fish moved around. Indeed, the skin, scales and fins of fish undergo wounds which, when colonised by bacteria from the normal flora of their environment, cause infections. These infections leave the affected individual vulnerable to attacks from other fish, and can also encourage the establishment of infections in the entire population, which can jeopardise a batch of new arrivals to the breeder’s facilities.
It was Professor Jean-François Blais who welcomed her to INRS’s Centre Eau Terre Environnement research and training centre with her project, which she describes as “quite daring.” He was “really great,” she says. “He was there 100%, he supported me, even financially, he trusted me, he allowed me to work, while developing my resourcefulness, since my laboratory was at the Biodôme in Montreal. I used bacteriophages from Laval University with the help of Dr Ackermann, I relied on the expertise of colleagues in veterinary medicine at the Université de Montréal, I reported to my supervisor at the INRS in Quebec and my tests were carried out on fish at the Biodôme in Montreal. I was a satellite that went everywhere,” sums up the woman who is “not afraid to be different.”
“I have fond memories of Sandra, who was one of my first doctoral students. Sandra is a very dynamic person with a multitude of talents and a great deal of courage and willpower. In fact, she’s the kind of person who can succeed at anything she sets her mind to. Sandra is also a very nice person to be around.”
—Jean-François Blais, professor in remediation and decontamination at INRS
After her studies, Sandra undertook a post-doctorate in philosophy to focus on environmental ethics. A year and a half later, she became pregnant and interrupted her project, but in 2016 published a work of philosophy for everyone entitled “La déresponsabilisation divine,” published by Jets d’encre. A single mother with multiple degrees, she worked as a receptionist in a beauty salon for 18 months, a position that offered her flexible hours to look after her son. Once she found a place in a day-care centre, she called back Professor Blais, who put her in touch with three opportunities to which she applied. “I was called for all three positions,” she says proudly. She took a low-paying job in an analytical laboratory in Lanaudière, where she worked at a hellish pace, but learned all the ins and outs of an analytical laboratory that would help her land her current job. “If I hadn’t worked every day in an accredited lab, I wouldn’t have known how to answer the interview questions. That job gave me the keys to success.”
Shortly afterwards, the selection process at Ville de Laval continued and she was offered the job. She became the city’s only microbiologist and revamped the laboratory, developing a technique, training staff, reviewing quality management parameters and making it possible to carry out a few thousand sample analyses a year, on matrices ranging from cooling tower water to river water, including drinking water, in physico-chemistry and microbiology. Her hard work has enabled the laboratory to take part in projects such as the “Programme d’excellence en distribution de l’eau potable,” and to improve the maintenance cycle of cooling towers. A number of research projects with Polytechnique Montréal have also kept her active on the research front and enabled her to publish again. At the City of Laval’s Service de la gestion de l’eau, Division Laboratoires, she now manages a team and is still responsible for science, biosafety, and water quality control.
With her son grown up, she has more time to step back and take an interest in the hustle and bustle of INRS. She has joined the management committee of Professor Philippe Constant’s new partnership research chair in microbiome engineering for environmental and agri-food applications at the Centre Armand-Frappier Biotechnologie research and training centre in Laval. The work of the chair, which is funded by the City of Laval, is aimed at improving our understanding and use of microbial communities in soil, water, plants and food bioprocesses. As she left the conference announcing the launch of the Chair in May 2023, she said that she had “found her family,” so much so did she feel an affinity with the scientists she met there and with whom she engaged in rich exchanges. She is very excited about this new avenue of research. “The microbiome is the only natural kingdom that humans have not yet abused. We’ve ruined resources like plants and animals, not to mention humans. We have to be respectful this time,” she says.
She is also planning other collaborations with Professor Constant, including workshops for INRS students to encourage reflection and put into perspective the role of science in society in general and in decision-making in particular, in order to ensure a sustainable future. “Researchers must have irreproachable integrity and have a louder voice than accountants in society, for the future of humanity and its ecosystem,” she says.
Advocating a better general knowledge and an end to over-specialisation, our alumna is pleased to see that universities are increasingly positioning themselves on public policy issues. Her message to the next generation of scientists is: “You’re not simply workers, you’re thinkers first.”
In passing, she pays tribute to her friend Jean-Daniel Bourgault, librarian at INRS’s Centre Eau Terre Environnement, who has “encouraged and fed her with readings” since the beginning of her journey and continues to do so today. “INRS is a great family. Thank you all, and I look forward to brainstorming together again in the future,” she concludes.
[Interviewed in June 2023.]