Sophie Lagacé's Web Page -
Page perso de Sophie Lagacé
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Sophie Lagacé's Web Page

• Environmental Engineering
• Environmental Impact Assessment
• International Development
• Useful Freeware, Shareware, and Support
• Personal Interests

Welcome to my Web site, I'm Sophie.  I'm an engineer, having transitioned from civil engineering to environmental engineering; I completed a Master's Degree at Humboldt State University (HSU), where I worked for a couple of years as a teaching assistant and lecturer.  From May 1999 to May 2008, I worked for a small environental engineering firm in Seattle.  For a complete description of my career to date, see my curriculum vitae (résumé) -- strictly for information: I love my current job and I have no desire to look for another right now.

While I worked for Humboldt State University's Environmental Resources Engineering Department, I taught a 400-level Environmental Impact Assessment class for two semesters, and I was rather pleased with the course program I had set up.  You can take a peek by clicking here.

• The Environmental Resources Engineering Program at Humboldt State University (HSU)
• The United States Environmental Protection Agency's Homepage
• The State equivalent,  California EPA Home Page
• A site that contains many interesting tools: Natural Resources Conservation Service, NRCS
• LUPIN database:  California Land Use Planning Network - includes information on CEQA.
• A fun and incredibly useful tool, US-EPA's Surf Your Watershed.
• The USGS NWIS-W data retrieval system, another fabulous tool.
• The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service's page, giving access to several databases: NRCS Technical Resources
• INRS-Eau: Université du Québec's Institut national de la recherche scientifique; site covering water science and water quality issues.  Bilingual, but with more French.  Includes the Journal of Water Science.
• A beautiful site, The Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds (part of US-EPA).
• Humboldt County  Watershed Improvement Network .
• The famous Arcata Marsh System, both a wildlife sanctuary and a wastewater treatment facility.

International Development Technology

• UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), supporting Sustainable Human Development.
• CIDA - Canadian International Development Agency
• IDRC, The Canadian International Development Research Centre
• A remarkable project, the Zabbaleen initiative in Cairo, Egypt.  Two links: the Association for the Protection of the Environment, which is a non-profit organization, and a consulting firm, Environmental Quality International.
• An "appropriate technology" focal point: Volunteers in Technical Assitance (VITA).
• United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC).
• World Health Organisation: WHO.
•  United Nations - Sustainable Development Web Site.

Useful Freeware, Shareware, and Support

• A firewall that has worked very well for me and is free for personal use: Zone Alarm.  For some reason, however, not everyone can access the main site even when it's confirmed to be up.  If this location doesn't work, try this alternate URL or the ZDNet download site.  Highly recommended.


• Tired of the damn pop-up ads? PopUp Killer is free, although the maker, xFX JumpStart, asks for a voluntary $7 (US) donation.  It works great, even gets rid of the annoying Netscape "SmartDownload" pop-ups.  Unlike many other anti-pop-up shareware and freeware, it works with a good variety of browsers, including Netscape, Internet Explorer, Opera, NeoPlanet, Mozilla, and NetCaptor.  Highly recommended.


• If you wish to browse, review, and annotate AutoCAD files, but don't need or want (or can't afford, or don't have the memory for) AutoCAD, and you're on a Windows platform, check out AutoDesk's free viewer, Autodesk - Volo View Express.


• If you wish to use GIS coverages but do not need to create entirely new coverages, check out ArcExplorer -- ESRI's Free GIS Data Viewer.  I have been using the Windows version for over a year, and find it extremely useful; now a cross-platform Java version is also available.


• All right, you probably know WinZip, but just in case: it's a file compression shareware for Windows/PC systems.


• But do you know Aladdin Systems' StuffIt Expander?  It's a freeware that allows you to open files that have been "stuffed", "BinHexed" (*.sit and *.bin extensions), or otherwise crunched through most compression systems used by Macs.  StuffIt is available for Windows, Mac, Linux Beta, and Solaris Beta.


• If, like me, you're a Netscape user, you can find a lot of useful information on the Unofficial Netscape FAQ Page, including how to get rid of the annoying Netscape "welcome" page, how to transfer mail files to another computer, etc.


• Check your e-mail accounts from any computer by going through Mail2Web.  Free, no setup necessary.


• Professional and free HTML editor, very slick: 1st Page.
 

Personal Interests

• See Québec and some of my favourite spots

 
• See the more domestic (and/or strange) side of me: go visit the private Web page my husband and I maintain as  Edmund & Sophie's fairly ordinary web page .  Includes pictures of our cats (yeah, I know you don't care about our cats, but my niece likes the pictures, so there is at least one fan out there), and pictures and stories of our wedding.

• Check out the Castle Falkenstein online role-playing game I used to run: The Great Game
 
• Check out the Legends of the Five Rings/Feng Shui online role-playing game I currently run: Days of the Kami (updated every week or so)
 
• See links about some of my personal interests, which include:

• Polite but fed up – my socio-political rant June 2, 2006
• Role-playing and miniatures games
• On-line museums
• Readings
• Links that make me laugh

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Page perso de Sophie Lagacé

• Génie de l'environnement
• Développement international
• Intérêts personnels

Je suis ingénieure, passée du génie civil au génie environnemental.  J'ai gradué en 1987 de l'Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal; je termine une maîtrise à Humboldt State University (HSU), où j'ai travaillé pendant deux ans comme chargée de cours.  Depuis mai 1999, je travaille pour une petite firme de génie-conseil à Seattle, Ridolfi Engineers Inc.

Mes excuses: la section française de ce site est plus courte que l'anglais.  J'ai l'intention d'améliorer cet aspect au cours des prochains mois.

Génie de l'environnement

BAPE: Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement

Agence canadienne d'évaluation environnementale:  ACEE

INRS-Eau: Université du Québec's Institut national de la recherche scientifique; site traitant des sciences de l'eau.  Comprend la Revue des sciences de l'eau

Développement international

L'Agence canadienne de développement international: ACDI

Le Centre de recherches pour le développement international - CRDI

Organisation Mondiale de la Santé: OMS

 

Intérêts personnels

• Voyez d'où je viens: le Québec et quelques uns de mes endroits favoris
 
• Voyez mon côté domestique et/ou bizarre: visitez la page Ouaib que mon mari et moi publions (presque toute en en anglais pour l'instant): Edmund & Sophie's fairly ordinary web page .  Vous y trouverez le bulletin d'Edmund & Sophie (bilingue), ainsi que des photos de nos chats (en français -- oui, je sais que vous vous en fichez, mais ma nièce les aime, ça fait toujour une fan).
• Visitez le jeu "en ligne" de Castle Falkenstein que j'ai mené pendant quelques années: The Great Game (en anglais seulement).
 
• Visitez le jeu "en ligne" de Legends of the Five Rings/Feng Shui que je mène présentement: Days of the Kami (en anglais seulement).
 
• Voyez ce que je fais de mes loisirs:

• Jeux de rôle
• Musées virtuels
• Lectures