Patrice Aknin, nouveau directeur du Mastère Spécialisé® Smart Mobility

Patrice Aknin is taking over as director of the Executive Master in Smart Mobility, replacing Mathieu Py. This unique program of excellence in France, accredited by the Conférence des Grandes Écoles, is a post-master's degree requiring six years of higher education and is jointly run by the École nationale des ponts et chaussées and Télécom Paris. It enables students to anticipate and lead the transformation of transport services made possible by digital technology.

A researcher and professor with longstanding involvement in the field of mobility and digital technology, Patrice Aknin has been a lecturer on the Smart Mobility Specialized Master's program since its creation in 2018, to which he actively contributed. After completing a PhD in signal processing at Paris-Sud University and obtaining a qualification to supervise research at ENS Paris-Saclay in 2008, he pursued a scientific career at INRETS and then at Ifsttar (now Université Gustave Eiffel ), where he headed the Marne-la-Vallée New Technologies Laboratory and served as research director and deputy scientific director for doctoral training and academic partnerships.

He then joined SNCF as Scientific Director of Innovation & Research (2013–2016), before taking up the position of Scientific Director at IRT SystemX in 2016, where he oversees major scientific challenges in the fields of data science, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and complex systems engineering. At the same time, he contributes to the scientific activities of several leading institutions (chairman of the scientific council of ENS Paris-Saclay, member of the research council of ENSTA and Télécom SudParis).

Professor in the "City, Environment, Transport“ at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées since 2006 and head of the ”Smart Public Transport" module of the Executive Master Smart Mobility Digital Transformation of Mobility Systems since 2019, he embodies dual expertise—transportation and digital technology—as well as a cross-disciplinary approach informed by economics, urban planning, engineering, and social sciences.  

"The Executive Master in Smart Mobility has proven its relevance since 2019 by training professionals capable of supporting the dual digital and service revolution in mobility. Today, a third challenge overlaps with these two dimensions: that of sustainability. Training tomorrow's engineers to articulate digital, mobility, and ecological transition will be at the heart of my commitment to the program's management," emphasizes Patrice Aknin.

With an extensive network of institutional, industrial, academic, and start-up partners, he also intends to strengthen the master's program's reputation and develop new opportunities for partnerships, projects, and professional theses for students.