Dr. Kurosaki is a professor at Toyo University in Japan. He has 31 years of experience in the railway sector and specializes in railway management. In 2008, he gained PhD from the University of Leeds with his thesis titled “An Analysis of Vertical Separation of Railways.” In addition to his career in a Japanese railway company and academic work, he has also rich experience in consulting for overseas railways as a railway policy specialist.

Marylin is leading EUROCONTROL’s Aviation Sustainability Team, supporting European aviation with data-driven models on aviation’s environmental impact. She contributes to research and innovation programmes and is responsible for EUROCONTROL’s support facilities on the EU Emissions Trading Schemes and CORSIA. Marylin has over 20 years of technical, operational, and environmental experience within the air traffic management community, including managing multinational projects. She was also a member of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition (CEET) under the United Nations Secretary-General, co-leading the working group on Energy for Transportation in 2022-2023.

Thanos Pallis is a Professor of port and maritime economics and policy at the Department of Maritime Studies, University of Piraeus, Greece. The founder and co-director of PortEconomics and the Vice-Chair of the global Port Performance Research Network (PPRN), He has served as President of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York, US, and held adjunct professorships at Dalhousie University, Canada, and Universidad de Los Andes Colombia. Thanos has co-authored the books European Port Policy, The Common EU Maritime Transport Policy, and Port Economics, Management & Policy (Routledge, 2022). Today, he is a member of the International Association of Ports & Harbors (IAPH) Risk and Resilience Committee and the IAPH Cruise Committee and co-author of the IAPH World Ports Tracker. He chairs the Advisory Board of the Italian Regulatory Authority for Transport. In 2024, he was included in the 2% of the world’s most cited researchers in transport & logistics.

Bram Peerlings is a specialist in the field of aviation sustainability at the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) and leader of NLRs research programme into climate neutral aviation. This programme is focused on better understanding the current and anticipated future climate impact of aviation, contributing to the development of alternatively-fuelled aircraft and addressing related operational challenges in a holistic way.

Employed on research and consultancy assignments, his interests go out to both global as well as local environmental impact, covering CO2 emissions and non-CO2 climate effects, but also noise, annoyance and community engagement. Often, these projects see him investigating and modelling future aircraft emissions, reduction opportunities and/or anticipated policies and their effects. He is working for a variety of clients in both the public and private sector, such as KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Royal Schiphol Group and various ministries of the Government of the Netherlands, participates in European research projects and has been a key author of the DESTINATION 2050 series of reports. This includes the early 2025 updated roadmap report, showing a possible pathway to net-zero CO2 emissions from European aviation and including assessments of related expenditures, cumulative emissions and compatibility with carbon budgets.

Bram holds MSc-degrees from Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands) in both Aerospace Engineering and Science Communication. He regularly publishes about his work or recent developments in the field of sustainable aviation, both through international conferences as well as by newspaper contributions and blogs.

Russell Pittman is Director of Economic Research in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  He is also a visiting professor at the Kyiv School of Economics and has previously taught at the New Economic School (Moscow), Korea University, and Georgetown University.  Among his most influential papers have been those on productivity measurement in the presence of negative externalities, in the 1983 Economic Journal; on the IBM antitrust litigation, in the 1984 International Journal of Industrial Organization; on U.S. railways regulation, in the 2010 Journal of Regulatory Economics, the 2010 Administrative Law Review, and elsewhere; and on Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian railways restructuring, in various journals and books.  In the 1990’s especially, he was a member of DOJ/FTC teams consulting with developing and transition country governments on competition and regulatory policies. He was a member of the World Bank’s World Development Report team in 2001; a co-author of the 2004 report of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport, Regulatory Reform of Railways in Russia; and part of the ECMT team consulting with the Mexican government on the establishment of its freight rail regulatory agency in 2015.  In 2022 he received the Antitrust Division’s William F. Baxter award “in recognition of the lifetime contributions in economic analysis and contributions made to the effective enforcement of antitrust law by an economist.

Aurore Laget-Annamayer (PhD Law, Université Paris Cité) is Full Professor of public law at the University Paris Dauphine-PSL in Paris.

Her research is focused on regulation of network industries, in particular railways, telecommunications and energy, and public business law. She has expended her fields of research on international and european environmental law and sustainable mobility. She has published many scientific articles notably on regulation of networks industry, independent regulation, competition in the rail transport sector and sustainable mobility. Her most recent books are « Economic public order” (LGDJ coll. Droit et économie, 2018) and “The opening up to competition of passenger rail transport in Europe : Comparative law perspectives” (Bruylant, 2023)

Herald Ruijters is Deputy Director General, responsible for Investment, Innovative & Sustainable Transport in DG Mobility and Transport. As regards investments in transport, his main responsibilities are the funding instruments Connecting Europe Facility and Horizon Europe and the financing instrument InvestEU. He is also responsible for the relationship with the EIB and with national and promotional banks. As regards innovative and sustainable transport, he assumes responsibilities for the development of the trans-European transport network, of the urban mobility framework, of alternative fuels infrastructure, of intelligent transport systems, as well as of passenger rights, social aspects and equal opportunities.

Since 1997 and until December 2023, Mr Ruijters held several positions in DG MOVE, as Director, Head of Unit, advisor to the European Coordinators, and in different roles developing the road safety policy. Before joining the Commission, he held various positions in The Netherlands related to transport.

Mr Ruijters holds degrees from Nijmegen and Amsterdam Universities in both French literature and European Studies, and was post-graduated at the Centre Européen Universitaire in Nancy, in European Law, and in Business Studies at the University in Leuven.

Elodie is a Research Assistant at FSR Transport. She holds a Law degree from the University of Westminster and a master’s degree in EU Trade and Climate Diplomacy from LUISS School of Government. She is a qualified Policy Officer in European and International Organizations.

Her collaboration with the FSR Transport area has started in 2024. She supports research on transport policies. Her main research interests are digitalisation of transport modes, sustainable urban mobility, and optimisation of transport infrastructures. Before joining FSR Transport, Elodie has gained professional experience at the European Commission, where she was supporting DG MOVE in the implementation of policies in the field of transport investment and innovation strategies for Horizon Europe programme.

Steven Truxal is Full Professor of Air and Space Law and Director of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University. He is an alumnus of The George Washington University and the University of Westminster. His studies in international relations, economics and law have informed his research, which focuses on multilevel economic and environmental regulation of air transport. He has held past appointments at the University of London, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

He regularly advises and provides trainings for governments and industry stakeholders on a range of legal and regulatory matters affecting air transport. He is also frequently invited to speak at academic conferences and diplomatic meetings, to international media and at industry events.

He serves on the advisory boards of the Zeitschrift für Luft- und Weltraumrecht (German Journal of Air and Space Law) and the Indian Review of Air and Space Law. In addition to his track record of publications on air law and policy, he has produced two monographs: Competition and Regulation in the Airline Industry: Puppets in Chaos (Routledge, 2012) and Economic and Environmental Regulation of International Aviation: From Inter-National to Global Governance (Routledge 2017).

Pierpaolo Settembri is an EU official since 2007, currently working as Head of Unit for Coordination and Planning in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE).

Previous professional affiliations: In the Commission, he worked as Assistant to the Director-General in DG MOVE and as a coordinator for G7/G20 matters and external policies in the Secretariat-General. He previously worked also in the General Secretariat of the Council, dealing with development cooperation and international trade. Prior to joining the EU institutions, he has been a Fulbright Scholar and Global Emile Noël Fellow at New York University, a researcher at the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht, a research fellow at LUISS “Guido Carli” in Rome and a teaching assistant at the College of Europe in Bruges.

Education: Political scientist by training (LUISS “Guido Carli”, 2001), he holds a Master in European Politics from the College of Europe (2002) and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Florence and Sciences Po – Paris (2006).