Academic Director

Prof. Jean-Paul Kneib

Jean-Paul Kneib is a Full Professor of Astrophysics at EPFL, Director of the EPFL Laboratory of Astrophysics (LASTRO), Academic Director of the EPFL Space Center, and the Swiss Scientific Delegate to the SKAO Council.

Prof. Kneib specializes in cosmology, radio astronomy, fiber-positioner robotic systems, and space sustainability, among other areas. He holds a master’s degree in Astrophysics and Space Technology and a PhD in Astrophysics from Toulouse University. He was awarded an ERC Advanced grant for the project LIght on the DArk along with many other scientific and innovation grants. He has served in many telescope time allocation committees and (e.g. XMM-Newton, Hubble and JWST) as well as many grant allocation committees (e.g. ERC, SNF, ANR).

Executive Director

Emmanuelle David

Emmanuelle has 10 years’ experience in space transportation in academia, agency and industry from pre-development projects up to launch operations. She holds Space Engineering degrees both from the University of Technology of Compiegne, France, and the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. She has completed in 2021 a certificate of advanced studies at the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zürich in Technology and Public Policy : Policy Process. She is International Astronautical Federation Space transportation committee and member of the board of the EUCASS- european conference for aerospace science.

She is engaged in increasing diversity and inclusion in scientific and engineering fields being a mentor program for the Swisstecladies and is also a member of the management group from the Swisstecladies Network from the swiss academy of Science (SATW). She is a member of Women in Aerospace and support the Space Generation Advisory Council “Our Giant leap” initiative.

Postdoc Researcher

Stephan Hellmich

Events Manager

Joanna Jermini-Howard

IT Manager

John Maxwell

Administrative Specialist
Student Coordinator

Candice Norhadian

Working for eSpace since January 2016.

Postdoc Researcher

Andrew Price

Communication Specialist

Lucie Ryser

Engineer
Student Coordinator

Mathieu Udriot

Mathieu Udriot graduated from EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) in February 2022 with a Master in Microengineering, specialized in space technologies. His master thesis was on the Implementation of a Space Sustainability Rating. He was part of the EPFL team that won the European Rocketry Challenge 2021 in Portugal. Now a young professional at eSpace, Mathieu is involved in projects related to green space logistics, space sustainability, concurrent engineering, and supervises student teams.

Engineer

Marnix Verkammen

Marnix Verkammen is an engineer at the EPFL Space Center (eSpace), where he completed his Masters thesis on life-cycle assessment and eco-design of space missions. Graduated as an aerospace engineer from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands with past experience in public outreach of a lunar rover team, he currently works on projects related to space sustainability. In particular, he develops a handbook for better design practices and supports a project on the early design Assessment and Comparison Tool (ACT) for environmental impacts.

Student Projects Supervisor

Pierre-Alain Maüsli

Senior Policy Advisor

Xiao-Shan Yap, PhD