[2] His father was an Italian prisoner of war and a member of the Alpine troops, and his mother, a German woman who fled Jewish persecution to China.

In parallel, he has led and contributed to national and international projects related to glacier research and environmental impact assessments, promoting innovation and technological development in geosciences.

He has authored over 100 scientific publications regarding glacier geophysics, snow avalanche processes, and debris flows, and he has contributed to awareness campaigns about Antarctica's importance for Chilean foreign policy.

In 2024, a study on the Patagonian ice fields in which Casassa participated determined that the glacier bed deepens up to about 20 km inland, possibly making it vulnerable to future retreat.

[10] He has also mentioned that the main ecological disturbances may include forest fires, floods, storms, insect outbreaks, overgrazing, earthquakes, various types of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, firestorms, meteorite impacts, climate change and the damaging effects of human activity (anthropogenic disturbances) such as habitat fragmentation, excessive logging, overfishing, high use of agrochemicals, contamination by radioactive elements or heavy metals, and the introduction of invasive species.