Our Team

Director of Development

Joan manages the project portfolio and development strategy at CREATES. A geographer, filmmaker and social entrepreneur, he has fifteen years of field experience across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

Scientific Director

Patrick oversees the scientific direction of CREATES. A researcher at the University of Bern, he has spent twenty years working on natural resource governance and social justice, from the Amazon to sub-Saharan Africa.

Bey Diiwaan Project Manager - Territorial Governance

Boubacar coordinates the Bey Diiwaan project, where he leads the territorial governance work. A political scientist (Master's in public governance, UCAD), he is completing a PhD in public policy and public innovation. An expert in participatory governance and monitoring and evaluation, he has worked with local governments, civil society organisations and donors (GIZ, Enabel, European Union) in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Burundi and the DRC. He also co-hosts, in rotation, the Cultiver les Territoires podcast.

NICE Project Manager - Value Chains

Berta coordinates value chain activities at CREATES. Originally from Austria and Poland, she has worked for fifteen years in Senegal in agroecology, permaculture and intercultural facilitation.

Admin & Finance Manager

Ndella manages CREATES' administrative and financial operations. With a Master's in Computerized Management (UGB), she brings over ten years of finance and administration experience with IBCR, GIZ, USAID, UNFPA and UNICEF in Senegal.

TERAL Project Manager - Agronomy

Saliou leads CREATES' agroecology projects in the field. An agronomist and certified trainer in Ecological and Biological Agriculture, he has coordinated agroecological projects in the groundnut basin since 2014. Master's in food security risk management (UGB).

Agroecology Field Coach - Bambilor

Bineta supports agroecological producers in Bambilor as part of the NICE project. A technician in agricultural sciences (Bachelor's with distinction, EMIA), she co-hosts Bambilor Community Radio and chairs the Production Commission of CIGA Bambilor.

Audiovisual - Videographer & Photographer

Pape Ousmane documents CREATES' work through images and video, giving visibility to field realities and the faces of Sahelian transformation.

Research Assistant - Water Governance

Awa conducts research on multi-scale water governance in Thiaffoura, CREATES' living lab. A geography student at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, she comes from the territory she studies.

Filmmaker

Thomas produces CREATES' audiovisual content. His documentary Poisson d'or, Poisson africain, co-directed with Moussa Diop, was selected at 85 festivals and won 27 awards.

Agroecology Field Coach - Kaffrine

Lahine supports agroecological producers in Kaffrine as part of the NICE project. A certified agroecology trainer (Beersheba Agroecology Centre, Mercy Ships' Food For Life programme) and agripreneur, he farms two hectares of market gardens and orchards and has trained over 300 women in biofertilisers and composting across the groundnut basin. Master's in African studies (UCAD).

AI Engineer - AI and Agroecology

Marième develops, with Sophie, the agroecological chatbot of the AI and Agroecology project. A data science and software engineer (Master 2, Alioune Diop University of Bambey), she wrote her thesis on a conversational system giving access to agronomic information, based on LLMs and RAG and applied to Senegal's main cereal and export crops.

AI Engineer - AI and Agroecology

Sophie develops, with Marième, the agroecological chatbot of the AI and Agroecology project, co-designed with farmers in Casamance to answer in French and Wolof. An AI and data engineer (ESMT) with a bachelor's degree in mathematics (UCAD), she has built RAG chatbots for citizens and local elected officials, and took part in adapting a language model to Wolof (Galsen AI Lab).

Photographer

Serge is a photographer and project manager based in Geneva. Trained at HEAD (Geneva University of Art and Design) and the University of Geneva, he collaborates with CREATES on the AgroVoiceS project, capturing through images the territorial transformations and invisible realities of Sahelian communities.

Associate Researcher

Keaton conducts research on indigenous crop preservation and agroforestry. A Fulbright Scholar, she came to the Sahel through ethnobiology and permaculture.