I was born in Mont-sur-Marchienne, Belgium on July 31, 1956. I am now Full Professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain, in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and Honorary Research Director from the FNRS (Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, National Fund for Scientific Research). My main research interest is the modelling, analysis, design, monitoring and control of reaction systems. This central topic area covers more specifically distributed parameter systems, nonlinear systems, parameter and state estimation, and adaptive control and adaptive extremum seeking control with application to microbial ecology, bioprocesses, chemical processes, pulp and paper processes, polymerisation reactors, environmental systems and electric systems.
Candidat en Sciences Economiques, Politiques et Sociales (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium) (1977).
Degree in Electrical Engineering (Ingénieur Civil Electricien) (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium) (Plus Grande Distinction) (1982).
Doctor in Applied Sciences (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium) (1986).
Thèse d'Agrégation de l'Enseignement Supérieur (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium) (1994).
Assistant (UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) (October 82 to August 87; September 88 to September 89).
Invited Researcher (Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada) (August-September 85)
Assistant Professor (Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada) (September 87 to September 88; September 90 to July 92).
Invited Professor (Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada) (September 88 - September 90).
SPPS Researcher (UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) (October 89 - September 90).
CNRS Associate Researcher (LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France) (March to June 89).
Faculty Associate of PAPRICAN (Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada) (October 1990 to September 93).
Research Associate FNRS (October 1990 to September 1995).
Associate Professor (Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada) (August 92 to August 93).
Invited Lecturer (UC Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)(October 1993 to September 1997).
Member of the GRESIP (Groupe de Recherches en Science et Ingénierie du Papier) of the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada, since September 1995.
Senior Research Associate FNRS from October 1995 to September 1999.
Part-time Lecturer (UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) from October 1997 to September 1999.
Honorary Research Director FNRS since October 1999.
Professor (UCLouvain, Belgium) from September 1999 to September 2005.
Sabbatical stay at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada (July 2000 to June 2001).
Invited Professor (Chemical Engineering Department, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada)(2002-2004, 2 months/year).
Professeur ordinaire (Full Professor)(UCLouvain, Belgium) (September 2005 to October 2021).
Sabbatical stay at Saint-Nazaire (GEPEA), Lyon (LAGEP) and Montpellier (INRA) from December 2006 to end of May 2007.
Emeritus Full Professor (UCLouvain, Belgium) since October 2021
Emeritus professor, INP Grenoble (October 2021 to October 2024)
Scientific advisor, FPInnovations (Canadian
research center in wood and paper)
Co-author of 5 books : "Fast Extremum Seeking Control. Theory, Methods and Applications" (with Martin Guay), "Bioprocess Control", "Dynamical Modelling and Estimation in Wastewater Treatment Processes" (with P. Vanrolleghem), "Automatique des Bioprocédés", "On-line Estimation and Adaptive Control of Biroeactors" (with G. Bastin).
Author and co-author of more than 450 journal and conference papers. ( See Publications )
Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Process Control from July 2014 to July 2020, Senior Editor since July 2020. Regional Editor for Europe from 2009 to 2014.
Associate Editor of Automatica.
Senior Editor of the
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control from 2018, Associate
Editor (2006-2008; 2012-2014).
Member of the Editorial Board of Foundations and Trends in Systems and Control.
Associate Editor of Bioautomation.
Member of the Advisory Board of the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering.
Promotor of several EC and industrial contracts (coordinator of the following EC projects : “Advanced monitoring and control of wastewater treatment processes”, AMOCO (Agriculture and Fisheries (FAIR), FP5), “Efficient operation of urban wastewater treatment plants”, EOLI (International Cooperation (INCO), FP6), HCM network in Chemical Process Control (CPC)(FP5), large collaborative project “Computer-aided food processes for control engineering” (CAFé)(Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnology (FP7), EC Marie Curie IRSES project « Bioprocess and Control Engineering for Wastewater Treatment » (BITA)(FP7).
Supervision of 17 Postdoc researchers (Y.B.
Hwang, W. Waldraff, S. Bourrel, Ph. Ligarius, L. Lefevre, M. Pengov, O.
Bernard, D. Hochereau, M. Titica, O. Schoefs, H. Fibrianto, A. Dramé, N.
Beniich, R. David, N.H. Hoang, N. Hudson, C. Robles),
Supervision of 17 Ph.D. students (B. Bouaziz (1993), N. Tali-Maamar (1994), S. Bourrel (1996), S. Renou (2000), O. Schoefs (2001), C. Delattre (2003), I. Aksikas (2005), P. Cougnon, F. Sauvage (2007), I. Simeonova (2008), A. Favache (2009), H. Mc Lean (2012), M.Vital Jacome (2017), B. Vincent (2019), A. Romo (2019), A. Ben Ayed, J. Kadima) and of 7 Master students (K. Benameur (1989), M.S. Djouadi (1992), I. Cornet (1993), K. Avowlanou (2000), I. Aksikas (2002), I. Simeonova (2004), N. Hudon (2004)).
Member of the supervising committee of 12 PhD students (L. Chen, V. Chotteau, S.J. Yang, G. Bangerezako, L. Coulibaly, S. Gusia, Y. Yu, Ch. Frippiat, F. Warichet, A. Provost, G. Solari, P. Mafwila )
Member of Thesis Juries in Belgium (UCL (14), RUG (3) ), ULg (1), Namur (3)), France (LAAS et Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse (5); ISAE-Supaero (1); INPG, Grenoble (15); ENSIC, Nancy (3); Université des Sciences et Techniques de Lille (3); Université de Lille 1 (3); Université de Technologie de Compiègne (8)), Université Henri Poincaré, Nancy (6), Université de Lorraine (1), Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis (3), Université de Perpignan in Narbonne (2), Université Claude Bernard, Lyon I (11), Université de Paris XII (1), Université de Paris XIII (1), Université de Paris Sud (2), Ecole des Mines ParisTech (2), Université de Montpellier (9), Université de Nantes (4), Supelec (4), Université d'Evry (1) )), Université du Havre (1)), Canada (Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal (16), Queen’s University, Kingston (4), University of Alberta (1)), Switzerland (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (3)), Austria (TU Wien (1)), Denmark (Danmarks Tekniske Hojskole (1)), Sweden (KTH, Stockhom (1)), Bulgaria (Academy of Sciences (2)), Netherlands (TU Eindhoven (2), Wageningen (1)), Morocco (Université d'El Jadida (2), Université de Cadi-Ayyad, Marrakech (1)), Australia (University of Melbourne (1)), South Africa (University of Pretoria (1)), Chile (Universidad de Chile (1)), Saudi Arabia (KAUST (1)).
Chairman of the "Commission de Diplôme Ingénieur Civil Chimiste" (Université Catholique de Louvain)(until September 2008).
Academic responsible of the international student mobility at the EPL (Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain)(2010-2014).
Director of the Belgian graduate school on
Systems, Control, Optimization and Networks (SOCN) from 2011 to 2020.
Co-chair of the IPC of the IFAC World Congress 2017 (Toulouse), member of the IFAC Publication Committee (since 2014), chairman of the IFAC Publication Committee (2011-2014), member of the Technical Board of the IFAC (2008-2011), Chairman of the IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Coordinating Committee on Process and Power Systems (CC6)(2002-2008), chair of the IFAC Technical Committee 8.4 (Control of Biotechnological Processes)(2002-2003), member of the IFAC Council (1999-2002).
NOC (National Organizing Committee) chair of the IFAC workshop TFMST (Louvain-la-Neuve, July 2019), IPC (International Program Committee) chair of the IFAC Symposium CAB8 (Quebec, Canada), June 2001 and the IFAC workshop TFMST’2016 (Vigo, Spain); IPC Vice-chair of TFMST'2013 (IFAC Workshop on Thermodynamic Foundations of Mathematical Systems Theory)(Lyon, France), co-chair of the NOC (National Organizing Committee) of CDPS'07 (Namur), July 2007
Member (publication chair) of the FOC (Federal Organizing Committee) of the ECC97 (European Control Conference)(1-4 July 1997, Brussels).
Member of the IPC (International Program
Committee) of Control Systems'96 (Exeter, UK), of CESA'96 (Lille,
France), of the IFAC Symposia IFAC ADCHEM'97 (Banff, Canada), ADCHEM'00,
ADCHEM'03, ADCHEM'06, ADCHEM'09, ADCHEM'12, ADCHEM'15, CAB7 (Osaka,
Japan), DYCOPS-5 (Corfou, Greece), of the International Symposium
BIOPROCESS SYSTEMS'98 BioPS'98 (Sofia, Bulgaria), of the IAWQ ICA
(Instrumentation, Control and Automation) Conference 2001 (Malmö,
Suède), of the IAWQ Conference Watermatex 2000 (Gent, Belgium), of the
IFAC Symposium ADCHEM 2000 (Pisa, Italy), of the ECC'2001(Porto,
Portugal), of the 9ème Congrès de la Société Française de Génie des
Procédés (Saint-Nazaire, 2003), of the International Conference on
Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO, 2004, 2005,
2006, 2007, 2008, Portugal), of 16th IFAC World Congress (2005,
Prague), of 2005 ISIC-MED (Chypre), of CAB 2007 (Cancun, Mexico),
CAB 2010, CAB 2013, DYCOPS 2007, DYCOPS 2010, DYCOPS 2013, MED’08
(Ajaccio, France), CIFA 2008 (Bucarest, Roumanie), ), of the 17th IFAC
World Congress (2008, Seoul), 18th IFAC World Congress (2011, Milano),
19th IFAC World Congress (Cape Town, 2014), ADCHEM 2015, DYCOPS-CAB
2016, ADCHEM 2018, DYCOPS-CAB 2019, CPDE-CDPS 2019
Session organizer : Session on Control of Biochemical Reactors (2nd IEEE Conference on Control Applications, 13-16 Septembre 1993, Vancouver, Canada), 2 Sessions on Chemical Process Control (ECC97, 1-4 July, Brussels), Session on Monitoring and Control of Bioprocesses (ECB9, 11-15 July 1999, Brussels), Session on Chemical Process Control (ECC99, 31 August-3 September 1999, Karlsruhe).
Member of IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
Member of the IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Technical Committees on : Chemical Process Control, Bioprocesses and Bioystems.
Best Referee Award for the Journal of Process Control (1999).
Outstanding Reviewer, Automatica (2003-2004)
Outstanding Service Award, IFAC (2008)
IFAC fellow (2010)
Certificate of Appreciation, CAS Publications (2011)
Certificate of Excellence in Reviewing : Top 15 Reviewers, Computers and Chemical Engineering (2011)
IFAC World Congress Application Paper Prize (2014)
Doctor Honoris Causa, INP Grenoble, 13
December 2019
Science citation index : 13157 (27/12/2022)
h-index : 53 (27/12/2022)