Vanessa Boudreau obtained her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Université Laval in 2009 followed by a master's degree also in chemical engineering (bioprocess engineering) from the same university in 2011. In 2011, she started a PhD in water engineering at modelEAU in Université Laval in Quebec City (Canada).

Vanessa's project was about the development of an iterative procedure for minimizing the uncertainty of decision variables in WWTP modeling. Optimal decision-making is obtained through model-based design of experiment aiming to minimize uncertainty of parameters in dynamic models taking into account the degrees of freedom available. Hence, the integration of knowledge to develop a robust iterative loop results in minimizing the uncertainty in decision variables in design models.