José Achache

José Achache (right) in 2007.

José Achache is President of ALTYN and Managing Director of AP-Swiss, a joint undertaking of ESA, the European Space Agency, and the Swiss Space Office.

José Achache was the Secretariat Director of Global Earth Observation System of Systems from 2005 to 2012. He was the first to serve in the position, having taken the post in 2005, when the Group on Earth Observations was established.

A graduate of Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, he holds a PhD in Geophysics from Université Pierre et Marie Curie, a PhD in Physical Sciences from Université Denis Diderot and a postdoc from Stanford University.

After 15 years of research in Geophysics, and 15 years of executive management in French and international R&D and space agencies (BRGM, CNES, ESA, GEO), José Achache is now involved in the development of applications and services relying on satellites.

He has been a research assistant then professor at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, deputy director of the French Geological Survey's research division, the deputy director general of the French space agency and director of Earth observation at the European Space Agency.

He is the father of the Sentinel series of satellites of the Copernicus/GMES programme of the European Union and the author of Les Sentinelles de la Terre, an essay on space policy and the applications of space infrastructures. He has published numerous scientific papers as well as editorial, interviews and conferences for wider audiences on space and environmental Issues.