Vincent KaufmannVincent Kaufmann is associate professor of urban sociology and mobility at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Since 2011, he is also scientific director of the Mobile Lives Forum in Paris. After a master degree in sociology (Universtiy of Geneva) he did his Ph.D. at EPFL on rationalities underlying transport modal practices. Vincent Kaufmann has been invited lecturer at Lancaster University (2000-2001), Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris (2001-2002), Laval University, Québec (2008) Nimegen University (2010), Université de Toulouse Le Mirail (2011), Université Catholique de Louvain (2004-2018) and Tongji University in Shanghai (2018). There fields of research are: motility, mobility and urban life styles, links between social and spatial mobility, public policies of land planning and transportation. He recently published “Mobilité et libre circulation en Europe” (with Ander Audikana) Economica (2017).
Johan Alexandre Philippe GaumeI started my scientific career in 2008 at the Grenoble University in the IRSTEA laboratory where I did my master's thesis on the rheology of dense granular materials using the discrete element method. In the same lab, I followed with a PhD on the numerical modeling of the release depth of extreme avalanches using a combined mechanical-statistical approach and spatial extreme statistics. In 2013 I obtained a postdoc position at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Davos where I was in charge of developing and applying numerical models to improve the evaluation of avalanche release conditions and thus avalanche forecasting. While my PhD was mostly theoretical and numerical, my postdoc in Davos allowed me to gain a practical expertise by participating in laboratory and field experiments which helped to validate the models I develop. In 2016, I was awarded a SNF grant to work as a research and teaching associate in CRYOS at EPFL on the multiscale modeling of snow and avalanche processes. I developed discrete approaches to model snow micro-structure deformation and failure in order to evaluate constitutive snow models to be used at a larger scale in continuum models. I also developed numerical models for wind-driven snow transport. In 2017, I was a Visiting Scholar at UCLA to work on a Material Point Method (MPM) to simulate both the initiation and propagation of snow avalanches in a unified manner. The UCLA MPM model was initially developed for the Disney movie "Frozen" and has been modified and enriched based on Critical State Soil Mechanics to model the release and flow of slab avalanches. The results of this collaboration have been published in Nature Communications. In 2018, I was awarded the SNF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship and became professor at EPFL and head of SLAB, the Snow and Avalanche Simulation Laboratory. At SLAB, we study micro-mechanical failure and fracture propagation of porous brittle solids, with applications in snow slab avalanche release. We also simulate avalanche dynamics and flow regime transitions over complex 3D terrain through the development of new models (depth-resolved and depth-averaged) based on MPM.In 2020, I obtained a SPARK grant to develop a new approach to simulate and better understand complex process chains in gravitational mass movements, including permafrost instabilities, rock, snow and ice avalanches and transitions to debris flows.
Jacques LévyJacques Lévy (1952-) is a geographer and an urbanist, full professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL). He is the director of Chôros Laboratory and the director of the Architecture and Sciences of the City doctoral programme.
Topics
His major concerns are social theory of space, urbanity, globalisation, cartography, and the epistemology of social sciences. He has completed numerous research projects, including theoretical reflections, field studies on metropolises worldwide, and practical urban and territorial projects. He is working on the introduction of non-verbal, namely audio-visual languages, in all dimensions of academic research. He has been the director of a scientific film, Urbanity/ies (2013)
Positions and Activities
Formerly, he has been researcher at the French CNRS, then professor at the Paris Institut détudes politique (Sciences Po, F) and at Rheims University (F). He has been invited professor in various universities: UCLA, NYU, USP (São Paulo), LOrientale (Naples), Macquarie (Sydney), and the Reclus Chair in Mexico City. He has been a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2003-2004). He has been invited as a keynote speaker in many congresses and conferences throughout the World.
He is the co-editor of EspacesTemps.net, a bilingual free-access journal of social sciences. He is the co-director of Lespace en société book series at PPUR/EPFL Press publisher. He is the scientific adviser of Pouvoirs Locaux journal. He is member of the international Grand Prix de lUrbanisme (Paris). He has numerous collaborations with newspapers and radio channels in France and Switzerland.
Publications
He has published in French, English, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Hungarian. Among his 600 publications, the following ones can be particularly noted: Révolutions, fin et suite (with Patrick Garcia & Marie-Flore Mattei, EspacesTemps/Centre Georges Pompidou, 1991);
Géographies du politique (ed., Presses de Sciences Po/EspacesTemps, 1991); Le monde : espaces et systèmes (with Marie-Françoise Durand & Denis Retaillé, Presses de Sciences Po/Dalloz, 1992 ; 2nd edition 1993), Lespace légitime (Presses de la FNSP, 1994); Egogéographies (LHarmattan, 1995); Le monde pour Cité (Hachette, 1996); Nouvelles géographies (Le Débat journal, special issue Nov. 1996); Europe : une géographie (Hachette, 1997 ; new edition 2011); Mondialisation : les mots et les choses (with the Mondialisation group, Karthala, 1999); Le tournant géographique (Belin, 1999); Logiques de lespace, esprit des lieux (Belin, 2000, co-ed. Michel Lussault); Repenser le territoire : un dictionnaire critique (LAube, 2000, with Serge Wachter et al.); From Geopolitics to Global Politics (ed., Frank Cass, Londres, 2001); Dictionnaire de la géographie et de lespace des sociétés (Belin, 2003, co-ed. with Michel Lussault); La carte, enjeu contemporain (La Documentation Photographique, 2004, with Patrick Poncet & Emmanuelle Tricoire); Les sens du mouvement (Belin, 2005, co-ed. with Sylvain Allemand & François Ascher); Eine geographische Wende » (Geographische Zeitschrift journal, special issue, 2005); Penser lespace pour lire la vieillesse (PUF, 2006, with Pierre Brunel, Claudine Attias-Donfut, & Jean Morval); Milton Santos, philosophe du mondial, citoyen du local (PPUR, 2007);
Linvention du Monde (ed., Presses de Sciences Po, 2008); The City (Ashgate, 2008); Échelles de lhabiter (ed., PUCA, 2008); Our Inhabited Space (ed., FNRS, 2009); Le sfide cartografiche (co-ed with Emanuela Casti, Il Lavoro Editoriale, 2010); Globalization of Urbanity (dir., avec Josep Acebillo et Chrisitan Schmid, iCUP, 2013); Réinventer la France (Fayard, 2013); Mondialisation : consommateur ou acteur ? (avec Jacques Cossart et Lucas Léger, Le Muscadier, 2013).
