Catherine Pralong Fauchère

Catherine Pralong Fauchère has been a member of the ENSI Board since 1 January 2020.

In 2008, Catherine Pralong Fauchère took over as head of the Department for Protection Against Noise and Non-ionizing Radiation in the Environmental Agency of the Canton of Valais, where she was previously employed as a technical expert.
Prior to that, from 2003 to 2004, as a contract physics engineer, she was commissioned to carry out research assignments in the field of nuclear engineering. From 1998 to 2001 she worked as a radiation protection supervisor at the Institute of Nuclear Engineering at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and supervised student laboratory work in gamma spectrometry and neutron flux measurements. In addition, during 1999 and 2000, Catherine Pralong Fauchère conducted tests at the EPFL as an expert in particle and nuclear physics.
She also conducted research at the School of Electrical Engineering at the Tel Aviv University in Israel where she was primarily involved in the generation of high-power microwaves.

Catherine Pralong Fauchère graduated from the EPFL in nuclear reactor physics before gaining her PhD in the same subject from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). In 1999, she was awarded an operations manager licence for the CROCUS zero-power reactor at EPFL. The previous year, Catherine Pralong Fauchère had completed training and received her certificate as a radiation protection expert at the Institute of Applied Radiophysics.

In addition to her outstanding expertise in nuclear engineering and radiation safety and thanks to her many years of service in cantonal administration, Catherine Pralong Fauchère has plenty of administrative experience which she will no doubt effectively apply to her in-house supervisory activities of the ENSI Board.