Santatra obtained a bachelor's degree in hydraulics engineering in 1998 from the Polytechnic College of Antananarivo, Madagascar. She also holds a professional master in entrepreneurship and  a master in business management and creation of innovative projects (2002), obtained in partnership with the francophone institute for entrepreneurship in Mauritius and the University of Bordeaux IV, France. She studied the feasibility of water treatment with duckweed in Madagascar. She obtained her PhD in civil engineering (2012) from Université Laval.

Her research focused on the problematic of highly parameterized models like SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) in modeling water quality in small rural river basins. In order to control river pollution, a model simulating fate of pollutants and identifying the best management practices can help, especially for small watersheds which are increasingly polluted but rarely or not monitored. Her objectives wee threefold:

• to develop a daily simulation methodology of flow, sediment and phosphorus;
• to evaluate the impact of agricultural management scenarios on river pollution;
• and to improve the modeling of sediment and phosphorus processes in the river.