Vanessa Scherrer

Dr. Vanessa Scherrer is the Vice President for International Affairs of Sciences Po. As such, she heads the international strategy of Sciences Po, including the 470 academic partnerships of the institution, its dual degree programs and strategic alliances across continents, and the international outreach and attractiveness of Sciences Po for students, faculty, and talents worldwide.

Before this, Dr. Scherrer had been the Executive Director and founding Vice Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po (2010-2017). She joined the leadership of PSIA with Dean Ghassan Salamé in 2010, and later with Dean Enrico Letta. Her management responsibilities covered curriculum and faculty affairs; student affairs, admissions and career services; international partnerships; financial and development affairs; communications and external relations. Under her leadership, PSIA grew to become this world-class school of international affairs with more than 400 faculty members and a community of 1600 students, 70% of the international students coming from more than 100 countries. Sciences Po is ranked #4 in Politics and International Affairs in the world (QS rankings, 2018).

Before joining Sciences Po, Dr. Scherrer spent a decade at Columbia University (2001-2010), New York, where she was the Director of the Alliance Program at Columbia University and a visiting professor at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). The Alliance Program is a forward-looking and sustainable partnership between four world-leading universities across the Atlantic (Columbia University, the Ecole Polytechnique, Sciences Po and the Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne). An endowed program at Columbia University, the Alliance Program has remained a unique academic endeavor in the world of international education benefiting more than 300 students and 80 faculty members every year.

Dr. Scherrer is a member of the faculty of Sciences Po. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris, France. At Columbia University and now at Sciences Po, Dr. Scherrer has taught Research Design and Qualitative Methods, Public Opinion and European Politics, and American Government. She has also launched and taught an experimental transatlantic course on Global Leadership, in collaboration with the Dean of the Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Tech University.

Vanessa Scherrer has been keen to be committed to civic endeavors that proved to promote global dialogue in an entrepreneurial spirit. She serves as the Vice President of the Paris Peace Forum (France) and was a member of the founding executive committee. She served on the founding board and on the steering board of the Groupe d’Intérêt Public for France’s bid for the World Expo in 2025. She has been part of the flagship Young Leaders program of the French American Foundation since 2013, which she has been supporting as a member of their programs and events committee. She has also served on the editorial committee of the innovative Echappée Volée, TEDx Paris.

She lives in Paris with her husband and their three children.