Jean-François (Jeff) Van de Poël is a senior expert in AI strategy, digital transformation, and pedagogical innovation in higher education, with over 30 years of experience spanning Belgium, Switzerland, Vietnam, and international organisations.

Currently AI & Teaching Advisor at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), he sits on the institution's Strategic AI Committee and contributes to the definition and implementation of UNIL's institutional AI policy for teaching and learning. He has trained over 1,000 educators, students, and staff in AI-related pedagogical practices since 2024, and has led more than 500 digital learning projects since 2004. He is the author of several original frameworks, including PRAX-IA, a positioning guide for assessment practices in AI contexts, a four-dimensional model of human-AI competency, and an institutional AI and DL maturity scale (COMPASS)
Previously Deputy Director for Digital Affairs at UNIL, he led the institution's digital strategy and steered its Digital Learning teams through the COVID-19 crisis. At the University of Liège, he coordinated the MOOC unit — producing 14 MOOCs with 79 faculty members — and designed the PEPITE instructional methodology and created the virtual campus unit. Earlier in his career, he spent nearly a decade with the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie in Vietnam, supporting bilingual education programs at primary, secondary, and university levels.
He holds Master's degrees in Educational Sciences, Educational Technologies, and University Pedagogy, as well as a certificate from the EDUCAUSE Digital Learning Transformation Institute (2024). He represents UNIL within SWITCH eduhub's Educational Technologies Working Group and is actively engaged with EUA, EDEN, EDUCAUSE, Swissuniversities, CIVIS, HDF, SURF, and the ZOOM EMEA Advisory Board.