Academic Team
This page details the academic advisors and teaching team who look after the International Master's degree. It will be updated with the full list in due course.
Professor Axel Buendia
Founder and Head of Spir.Ops, Doctorate in Artificial Intelligence, Teacher and Holder of Cnam's Digital Interactive Media Research Chair and Director of Cnam-Enjmin
Axel Buendia is one of the founders of Spir.Ops, an independent AI think tank, since 2004.
As a doctorate and having worked in several video game studios, such as Cryo or Polygon Studios, he has acquired the experience needed to create advanced tools to design the behaviours of tomorrow.
Since creating Spir.Ops, he has worked together with different renowned studios, such as Ubisoft, on different genres of games, including sport, FPS and adventure.
He has been an Associate Professor at Cnam for several years and has taught AI in different higher-educational establishments, including Cnam-Enjmin. With one foot in the industry and the other in academia, he tries to bring this balanced and modern vision of the sector, bringing together research and industry needs.
Axel Buendia is the current Director of Cnam-Enjmin.
David Elahee
Educational Leadership and Engineering Manager - Game Programming
Game Programmer | Code Artist | Studio Founder and Director | Event Organiser | Former President of a Video Game Cluster
David Elahee is a veteran of the video game industry. As a third-party developer, he worked for main industry players such as Ubisoft or Activision. He then joined the independent developers' community under the alias 'Blackmagic' in the cooperative studio Motion Twin. He is also the co-founder of several festivals and associations. He has taken part in over 70 video game projects and today co-runs the Headbang Club studio which he founded with his friends.
Farhanaz "Joy" Elahee
Educational Leadership and Engineering Manager - Game Art
Game Artist | Author | Artistic and Creative Director | Game Poet
Farhanaz aka Joy worked and specialised as a 2D and 3D Animator in the video game industry at Ubisoft as well as other video game studios. She has also worked on several animated series in France and for Disney. She is also a Character Designer, Narrative Designer and Illustrator. In 2022, she co-founded the Purple Meadows studio. She is now an Artistic and Creative Director, and is part of a group of International Game Poets. She has published a dozen books, one of which won the UNESCO Research Chair Label for Sexual Health and Human Rights.
Lucile Cacciuttolo
Educational Leadership and Engineering Manager - Game Design
Game Designer | Game Design Teacher
Lucile started out as a Graphic Designer in the video game industry and has most notably worked on Adibou, Spyro and Transformers. She has also worked on several animation series, such as Grabouillon and La Chouette & Cie which were broadcast on French TV channel France Télévision. As a Game Designer, she has created over 50 games and interactive experiences on touch screen tablets and other innovative devices. From 2022 to 2023, she worked at Ubisoft, where her main project was to create their amusement park.