Monaco Women Forum 2025: The New Space Race

Dr. Bianca Lins, LL.M. is a Legal & Compliance Officer at the Liechtenstein Office for Communications (OfCom), the regulatory authority, inter alia, for the electronic communication and space sector. Bianca is leading the Liechtenstein Space Department and is responsible for establishing and developing the field of space both nationally and internationally. Bianca is responsible for the implementation of legal requirements and co-drafted the Liechtenstein Space Act and the Liechtenstein Cybersecurity Act. She served as first female Chair of the ITSO Advisory Committee (2023/2024), is the ITSO Regional Vice-Chair for Region B (Western Europe), member of the EUTELSAT IGO Advisory Committee and the ITSO Panel of Legal Experts. Additionally, she is a Legal Expert for satellite coordination issues for the Liechtenstein Administration. Before working for OfCom, she served in a research capacity at the University of Liechtenstein, where she continues to teach, notably Cybersecurity & Law. In addition to that, she is an author, speaker and mentor. In 2023, Bianca was honored with the "Cybersecurity Woman of the Year Award" in the Law Professional category. She has also been named the winner of the 2024 "Cybersecurity Woman of the World Award," which was presented at the end of September in Slovenia. She shares her expertise through various mediums such as publications, podcasts and lectures. In her early career, Bianca worked in IT and financial markets.

Francesca Cipollini graduated in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Rome "La Sapienza", where she also obtained her PhD. She began her career at the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2002 within the Technical and Quality Management Directorate at ESTEC, ESA establishment in the Netherlands. Over the past 20 years, Francesca Cipollini has held various positions across a broad spectrum of technical, operational, and managerial domains in multiple ESA establishments. Her expertise encompasses the definition, implementation, and management of research and development activities for satellites and re-entry vehicles, as well as the technical and operational management of ground support systems for Launchers and Earth observation satellites. Following extensive experience in the Space Transportation Directorate at ESA Headquarters in Paris, notably in the technical management of the launch range systems at the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, she joined in 2016 to the Directorate for Earth Observation Programmes at ESRIN, ESA establishment in Italy, where she managed key operational activities within the Copernicus programme. Since 2022, Francesca Cipollini is the Head of the ESA Ground Segment and Data Management Division, responsible for the development and operations of satellite data processing and distribution systems for ESA Earth observation missions.

Johanna Sepúlveda received her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering – Microelectronics by the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She was a Senior Researcher in the area of security and emerging technologies at the University of South Brittany (France), INRIA (France) and at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). Currently she holds a position as the Airbus Senior Expert on Quantum-Secure Technologies and Technical Domain Manager for Quantum Technologies in all Airbus Defence and Space, being Chief Engineer of different European quantum initiatives such as the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI). Also she is the vice-chair of the Strategic Advisory Board of Quantum Technologies for the European Commission and leader of the Strategic Industry Roadmap at the Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC). She has more than 15 years of experience in R&T and R&D in the area of security, networked systems, HPC and quantum technologies.

Rosanna Hoffmann leads the “Space Law for New Space Actors” project at the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), supporting UN Member States in drafting and implementing national space laws to promote responsible, safe and sustainable outer space activities. Previously, she was Executive Officer of the European Centre for Space Law (ECSL) at the European Space Agency (ESA), overseeing operations, representing ECSL at the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), and organizing space law workshops. As Associate Legal Officer in ESA’s Public International Law Division, she provided legal advice on international and national space law to ESA Member States. Earlier, Rosanna was a lecturer at the University of Vienna, teaching public international law and coaching the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court team. She also worked at Austria’s Ministry of Justice, responsible for labour law.

Dr Sandrine Mathieu obtained her PHD thesis in "Physical methods for remote sensing" in 1994. In 1996 and 1997 she was a research assistant at University of Maryland (USA), in the UMIACS department in projects involving land use classification with spectral unmixing processing for the Grand Challenge Project of USGS. From 2000 to 2021 she was part of the Thales Alenia Space teams, working in the Observation Exploration and Navigation department. Her main studies and work focus on environment and civil security applications especially regarding coastal zones problematic, e.g. 2D and 3D data fusion for scene interpretation. She was in charge of hyperspectral activities regarding processing and applications of images and databases. In 2013 she was part of the Copernicus Sentinel 3 program development, in charge of the technical specifications of the End-to-End Optical System Performance Simulator, assessing the global performance of the system and providing test data sets to the operational Ground Segment. Then, In the Meteosat Third Generation team she handled the position of Instrument Quality Tool technical Manager, embedding Imaging and Sounding instruments (FCI, IRS, LI and UVN). From 2018 to 2021 she held the position of Product Line Manager of the Meteorology, Environment and Oceanography missions within Thales Alenia Space. Gathering all satellite missions of these 3 domains regarding Climate change problematic. She has the End to End system vision allowing to link the EO products and services to the appropriate space segment and processing. She is part of French COSPACE Applications working group. In 2022, she joined the ACRI-ST Group, an independent SME, partner of space agencies, at the service of satellite data users, combining scientific research and engineering of complex environmental systems. She was first deputy director of the Space Science Earth Observation department and now responsible of Institutional relations.