Executive Committee

Unchain my Art has the ambition to enhance art exhibitions globally. Nowadays, numerous art pieces are in the hands of private collectors all around the world, while more exhibitions encounter large-scale public success. The need to connect both is pressing and would benefit all, but as collectors want to stay anonymous, museums can hardly connect with them. To solve this problem and enable exchange in a trustworthy environment we imagined a collective blockchain-based platform that can certify ownership while ensuring anonymity. Our project will help museums in their mission and make culture accessible to all.

Pierre François is a sociologist and CNRS research director at the Center for the Sociology of Organizations (CSO). He served as director of Sciences Po’s department of sociology from 2014 to 2017. His research focuses on the dynamics of the worlds of art – particularly contemporary poetry – and on the sociology of businesses and their leaders. Pierre François teaches in Sciences Po’s masters program as well as the Collège universitaire (undergraduate level), where he teaches the introduction to sociology course. He was a professor of sociology at the École polytechnique between 2009 and 2017. Pierre François aims to enable Sciences Po’s Doctoral School to meet the twin challenges of research internationalization and of the growing scientific and methodological requirements it involves. 

Philippe Etienne is the Ambassador of France to the United States.

He previously held numerous posts within the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, notably including Ambassador of France to Romania (2002-2005), Director of the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs (2007-2009), Permanent Representative of France to the European Union (2009-2014), Ambassador of France to Germany (2014-2017) and most recently, Diplomatic Adviser to the President (2017-2019).

Philippe Etienne is an expert on the European Union and continental Europe. He has held posts in Moscow, Belgrade, Bucharest, Bonn, Berlin and Brussels. He has also served as an adviser in the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs on several occasions.

A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (“Voltaire” Class, 1980), Philippe Etienne also holds the Agrégation (teaching diploma) in Mathematics, has a degree in Economics and is a graduate of the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Serbo-Croatian).

He speaks English, German, Spanish, Russian and Romanian.

He is an Officer of the Legion of Honor and a Commander of the National Order of Merit.

Moon is a browser extension that allows you to shop with cryptocurrency anywhere online instantly, securely and without fees. Link your Coinbase account or use the wallet of your choice to make purchases using Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether, and others. Unlike other cryptocurrency payment products, our solution does not require a direct integration with merchants. For example, users in the US can shop directly on Amazon.com with their crypto. Just install Moon and you can shop on Amazon.com with Bitcoin.

Each year, more than 1 million people in the world die because of counterfeit medicines.

With Meditect, patients and health professionals can scan their box of medicine to verify its authenticity and benefit from several information such as posology in different languages.

Using Blockchain technology, Meditect and pharmaceutical companies empower patients and health professionals and strengthen public health in developing regions.

The Meditect app is designed for pharmaceutical companies, pharmacists and patients and is currently deployed in West Africa. 

Maya Tolstoy became Interim Executive Vice President of Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in September 2018. She is a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Professor Tolstoy is a marine geophysicist specializing in seafloor earthquakes and volcanoes. She holds a BSc Honors in Geophysics from the University of Edinburgh and a Ph.D. in Earth Science from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.

Madeline Woker is a PhD student in International and Global History at Columbia University in New York. In June 2014, she obtained an MPhil in Modern European History from the University of Cambridge. She holds also a Double Master in European Affairs from London School of Economics and Political Science and Sciences Po Paris. Her dissertation project examines the politics of taxation in the French colonial empire.

Ira Katznelson is Columbia University’s Interim Provost, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, and Deputy Director, Columbia World Projects. His 2013 Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time was awarded the Bancroft Prize in History and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award in Political Science. Other books include Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy After Reconstruction (2018; co-authored with David Bateman and John Lapinski), and Liberal Beginnings: A Republic for the Moderns (2008; co-authored with Andreas Kalyvas). Professor Katznelson, a fellow British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, is a former president both of the American Political Science Association and the Social Science Research Council. He earned his BA at Columbia College and his PhD in History at the University of Cambridge, where he served in 2017-2018 as Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions. Prior to his arrival at Columbia in 1994, where he also had been an assistant and associate professor, he had taught at the University of Chicago, where he served as chair of the Department of Political Science, and the New School for Social Research, where he was Dean of the Graduate Faculty.

Georges Hadded is the newly appointed President of Paris 1 - Pantheon Sorbonne. Georges Haddad, a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, holds an M.A. in Mathematical Sciences from the University of Paris VII and a D.E.A. (postgraduate diploma) in mathematics from the University of Paris VI.  He also holds the Agrégation in mathematics and a doctorate (Doctorat d’Etat) in mathematical sciences.

Professor Haddad started his career as an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Tours (1975-1976), later on moving to the University of Paris-Dauphine (1976-1983).  From 1983 to 1984, he took up the position of Lecturer at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.  Appointed Professor in 1984 at the University of Nice, he has since been Professor at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.  He was President of the latter University from 1989 to 1994, and also First Vice-President (Chairman) of the French Conference of University Presidents from 1992 to 1994.  Professor Haddad was formerly Honorary President of the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.  He participated in the World Conference on Higher Education as Chairperson of its Steering Committee, from 1994 to 1999, and was also a member of the Task Force on Higher Education in Developing Countries (World Bank-UNESCO) from 1998 to 2000.

He founded the “Marin Mersenne” research laboratory for mathematics, informatics and interdisciplinary applications and is a member of several scientific and educational councils.

Professor Haddad’s personal commitment to education and sciences through mathematics, their development and multidisciplinary applications has been rewarded by honorary distinctions such as Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur for Scientific Research and Commander of Palmes Académiques for Education, among others.

Gaëtan Bruel took on his new role as Cultural Counselor of the French Embassy in the United States on September 3, 2019.

A graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, with an academic background as a historian, throughout his career he has specialized in cultural issues, working at multiple French ministries, and overseeing two of France's most important national monuments.

Since 2017, he has been an adviser to the French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, in charge of the Americas and cultural diplomacy. In this position, he closely followed the political, military, economic, commercial, and cultural relationship between France and the United States, while working on French cultural diplomacy around the world.

Previously, he worked at the French Ministry of Culture, as an administrator of the Arc de Triomphe and the Pantheon. Responsible for overseeing the restoration of these monuments and hosting nearly three million visitors to these sites each year. During this time, he helped renew the cultural and educational programming at these two icons of the French Republic. He has also worked at the French Ministry of Defense, as adviser to the Minister in charge of culture, helping to establish relationships with universities and think-tanks, and creating a "cinema" program to develop ties between producers, screenwriters and the French military.

Frédéric Mion attended Sciences Po, Princeton University, the École Normale Supérieure (ENS), and the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) where he specialised in public law and the humanities.

He has held senior management positions in the public and private sectors. From 2007-2013, he served as Vice President of Canal +, France’s largest media group, and before this, worked as a partner at Allen & Overy LLP, where he led the Public Law team. Prior to his work in the private sector, Mion held positions at the Ministry of Education and the Conseil d’État (France’s Supreme Court for administrative justice).

Frédéric Mion succeeds the late Richard Descoings. He takes the helm of an institution intent on remaining open to the world and its diversity, and at the centre of academic excellence and research in the social sciences.

Frédéric Mion was appointed President following an open competition organised by Sciences Po’s two main governing bodies composed of faculty, students, employees and trustees.

Eric Labaye graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, Télécom ParisTech and INSEAD . He was previously senior associate director at McKinsey & Company, where he headed the French office and chaired the McKinsey Global Institute, the firm's macroeconomic research institute. He was a member of the global executive committee in charge of intellectual capital as well as the board of directors of the company. He is also a member of the Telecom ParisTech School Council, the ESSEC International Advisory Board and the Strategic Advisory Board of the Sciences Po School of Public Affairs

Emmanuel Kattan is Director of the Alliance Program. He was previously Director of the British Council in New York, where he oversaw academic collaboration programs. He created partnerships with the Henry Luce Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation to launch initiatives connecting higher education institutions across the Atlantic. Before joining the British Council, Emmanuel was Senior Adviser at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, where he managed strategic communications and engagement with academic communities. He also held senior positions at the Commonwealth Secretariat and at the Quebec Delegation in London, where he was in charge of academic relations programs. A native of Montreal, Emmanuel studied politics at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and earned a PhD from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He is the author of four books: an essay on the politics of memory and three novels.

Graduated from École polytechnique (Class of ’94), Dominique Rossin also received his PhD in Computer Science. He began his career in 2001 as a researcher at CNRS (The National Center for Scientific Research)  in the Computer Science department of University Paris Diderot.

He lead the Combinatorics and Algorithmic team for five years, and was member of the scientific Committee for computer science of the CNRS.

After ten years, he was appointed to École polytechnique in 2011 as a researcher and part-time professor.

From 2013 to 2014, he was also the deputy delegate for Computer Science and Mathematics in the Regional Delegation for Research and Technology of Paris area.

In 2015, he was appointed Vice-Provost for Education at École polytechnique.

Carlos J. Alonso is the Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor in the Humanities. He came to the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia in fall 2005 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the Edwin B. and Leonore R. Williams Professor of Romance Languages. He specializes in 19th- and 20th-century Latin American intellectual history and cultural production, and in contemporary literary and cultural theory. He is the author of Modernity and Autochthony: The Spanish American Regional Novel (Cambridge UP), and The Burden of Modernity: The Rhetoric of Cultural Discourse in Spanish America (Oxford UP), and editor of Julio Cortázar: New Readings (Cambridge UP). He was also Editor of PMLA—arguably the premier journal of literary criticism and theory—during 2000-03, and edited the Hispanic Review in 2003-06, a period that ushered in changes that led to an award in 2005 for best journal design by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. While at Penn, Prof. Alonso was the recipient of a Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the university's highest award for pedagogical excellence.

At Columbia he was chair of the department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures from 2005-10, and was Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society for four years. He has taught recently the required graduate seminar on "Literary and Cultural Theory" and the course "Theories of Culture in Latin America." Under his editorship the department's Revista Hispánica Moderna received the 2009 Council of Editors of Learned Journals Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement.
Prof. Alonso became Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in July 2011.

Since April 2017, Benoit Deveaud is the Deputy Director for Research and Teaching at Ecole Polytechnique in Palaiseau. He is responsible for the whole research center of Ecole Polytechnique, in coordination with the different partners. 

He spent 25 years at EPFL, where has been the director of the Institute of Quantum Electronics and Photonics for more than 10 years. The institute housed more than 80 members. A significant part of the load as a director was the proper organization, management and development of the common technological facilities of the Institute.

He has also been the Deputy Director of the National Center of Competence in research “Quantum Photonics” from 2001 to 2005 and the Director of this NCCR from 2005 till the closing in 2013. The center coordinated the activity of 14 research teams spread all over Switzerland. The direct annual funding has been of the order of 4 MCHF, and allowed a total funding, including third parties, of 14 MCHF /year. The direction team had the responsibility for preparing the program, managing the finances, organizing the tech transfer activities and carrying out specific actions in terms of women’s promotion, education as well as contact with the press and the public (see nccr-qp.epfl.ch).

Benoit Deveaud has been Dean for Research at EPFL from 2008 to 2014, in charge of the planning and organization of research activities. In this position, one of his major tasks has been the equipment budget both for startup packages and for platform equipment. He has been able to convince the Direction of EPFL to increase significantly the budget in this direction.

In 2014, Benoit Deveaud stepped down as a Dean of research to take the lead of Physics at EPFL. The visibility of Physics indeed suffered from the absence of a leadership in the field. After 18 months of intense negotiations, the structure of the new Institute has been set and Benoit Deveaud was elected the Director of the new Institute as of the 1^st of January 2016. The Institute corresponds to approximately 650 persons, including 200 PhD students. The external funding of the Institute amounts to 220 MF over the last 6 years.

Benoit Deveaud has been a member of the Academic Promotion Committee of EPFL from 2001 to 2014. He has been the President of the EPFL research commission from 2008 till 2016.

After a bachelor degree in political sciences specialized in transition studies in Central and Eastern Europe, Aude-Cécile Monnot spent a year in Prague at Charles University. There, she nurtured her curiosity for Post-Soviet studies and the history of the Soviet Union. After studying Russian during her first academic years, she graduated from the National Institute of Language and Oriental Civilization in Paris, with a major in Farsi.

In 2013 Aude-Cécile started a Ph.D. on the history of Soviet Central Asia, focusing on issues of justice and legal practices at the local level. This everyday history of justice lies at the cross-road of different specialties such as state building, practices of power, legal history and colonial studies. Therefore Aude-Cécile uses a research framework that borrows from other disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and political sciences. 

Ash is a platform on which each actor is able to sell its digital creations without any intermediary. For instance, it is possible to directly publish an ebook and send it to readers, raise funds for a new episode of a web series or share the development costs of a software plug-in between interested customers.

In practice, encrypted offers transit freely without any entity to control or influence the user. The peer-to-peer encryption protocol used by Ash ensures the privacy of personal data thanks to cutting-edge technology.