After an engineering diploma in Algeria (CERI, Algiers, 1978), I got my PhD in 1986 from University P. & M. Curie (Patis VI) while my research has been done at INRIA (Sabre Project). In 1992, I got the HDR (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) from University of Paris VI.

I have been a senior lecturer at the CERI engineering school (Algiers, Algeria) from 1978 to 1981, and at the University of Paris VI from 1983 to 1986. From 1987 to 1992, I have been associate professor at Paris VI University. Since 1992, I am a full professor at the University of Versailles SQY (first class in 1999 and exceptional class in 2008). Since December 2009, I am deputy director of the CNRS-INS2I Institute.

I actively participated to the creation of the PRiSM lab where I am currently leading the research group on advanced modeling of adaptive information systems (AMIS). I supervised about 30 PhD students during the last 20 years. Many of them have academic positions in France or abroad.

During 15 years I was a Scientific Collaborator of different INRIA Teams (Sabre, Rodin, Caravel) where I participated to various research projects on object databases, active databases and data warehousing. For my sabbatical year (1998), I was granted by ERCIM to visit the University of Rome- La Sapienza and the the Technical University of Athens - NTUA. In 2006-2007, I got a one year CNRS delegation.

I published several papers in different journals and conferences and co-authored six books on database systems, object technology  and design methodogies. I was also editor of several LNCS Proceedings of various international conferences. I was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Engineering of Information Systems and a co-founder/co-editor in chief of the Networking and Information Systems Journal (both published by Hermes, Paris). I was Guest-editor of the Data and Knowledge Engineering Journal and a Guest-editor of the International Journal on Information Systems.

I participated as a program committee member of many national and international conferences (including VLDB, EDBT, ER/Conceptual Modeling, CoopIS, CAiSE, DOLAP, DaWak, ....). I was the founder and the Program Committe Chairman of the First Internationql Conference on Applications of Natural Language to Databases (NLDB'95). I was the Chairman of the Organisation Committee of the EDBT'96 Conference, the co-Chair of the Program Committee of the ER/CM'99 Conference on Conceptual modeling, the general chair of NLDB'2000 and ICSNW‘2004. I was the Tutorials & Panels Chairs of EDBT’08 and the European Coordinator of ER/CM’01. I am a member of the EDBT Conference Association since 1996 and I was a member of the ER/CM Conference Steering Committee between 1999 and 2003.

I was also involved as a member of several local and national committees (including CNU, the National Concil of French Universities, CNRS/RTP9, GE4 Expert Group at the French Ministry of Education and Research), as expert of European and French research programs and as expert of different CNRS associated laboratories.