My research focuses on finding semantic relationships in heterogeneous data, including table discovery in data lakes, knowledge graph embedding and link prediction, and metadata alignment, and on using them for information retrieval and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG and GraphRAG).

Selected publications

• A. Boutaleb, B. Amann, H. Naacke and R. Angarita. “Something’s Fishy in the Data Lake: A Critical Re-evaluation of Table Union Search Benchmarks.” Table Representation Learning Workshop @ ACL 2025, Vienna, Austria, 2025. Best Paper Award.
• A. Boutaleb, B. Amann, R. Angarita and H. Naacke. “Exploring Multi-Table Retrieval Through Iterative Search.” EurIPS 2025 workshop, 2025.
• A. Boutaleb, A. Almutawa, B. Amann, R. Angarita and H. Naacke. “HEARTS: Hypergraph-based Related Table Search.” ELLIS Workshop on Representation Learning and Generative Models for Structured Data, Amsterdam, 2025.
• A. Aknouche, B. Amann, J. Buret and R. Angarita. “Aligning Datalake Assets to Business Glossaries within Enterprise Knowledge Graphs.” Gestion de Données — Principes, Technologies et Applications (BDA), 2025.
• S. Al Katat, C. Zaki, H. Hazimeh, I. El Bitar, R. Angarita and L. Trojman. “Knowledge Graph-Driven Approach in Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis: Exploring the Impact of Embedding Techniques.” IEEE Access, vol. 13, pp. 102553–102563, 2025.
• S. Al Katat, C. Zaki, H. Hazimeh, I. El Bitar, R. Angarita and L. Trojman. “Toward Green LLMs: Computational and Environmental Implications of Knowledge-Enhanced ABSA Models.” IEEE International Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering and Computing (ETECOM), Riffa, Bahrain, 2025.
• H. Baalbaki, H. Hazimeh, H. Harb and R. Angarita. “TransModE: Translational Knowledge Graph Embedding Using Modular Arithmetic.” Procedia Computer Science (KES 2022), vol. 207, 2022.

In total: 6 journal articles (4 in Q1 venues), 2 book chapters and 30 papers in international conferences and workshops. The full list, with PDFs for most papers, is on Google Scholar and dblp.

• Argumentative Graph-RAG for Participatory Democracy, LIP6 AI & Data Science programme, with Nicolas Maudet (Multi-Agent Systems team). 2025 – in progress.
• Intelligent services for data catalogs, CIFRE industrial PhD partnership with Zeenea (data catalog vendor). 2023 – in progress.
• Table Discovery in Data Lakes, LIP6 internal project. 2023–2024. Led to HEARTS, a hypergraph-based related table search method.
• Chair between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Isep, head of the chair, at Isep.
• EIT Digital CivicBudget and Inria Technology Development Action CivicBudget, participatory budgeting platforms, with CITRIS@UC Berkeley (USA), Missions Publiques (France, coordinator), Nexus and TU Berlin (Germany). 2016–2017.
• Inria@SiliconValley programme. 2016–2017.
• Earlier: EIT Digital Civic Tech and Participatory Democracy; Inria Technological Development Action SocialBus.

• Programme committees: The Web Conference (WWW) 2026, Semantics and Knowledge track · ESWC 2025–2026, research track · KDExLLM @ ICDE 2026 · ETECOM 2025–2026 · earlier: ARTIIS, WI, EPIA, IEEE WETICE, IoTBDS, IEEE CIC, FiCloud, FASE.
• Track chair: Software Systems track, IEEE FiCloud 2019–2022.
• Session chair: IEEE CIC 2017 · Inria@SiliconValley Workshop BIS 2016 · IoT and Big Data 2016.
• Reviewing: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, IEEE Software, ACM TAAS (Distinguished Reviewer, since 2021), Knowledge and Information Systems, Journal of Systems and Software, IEEE Access, Pattern Recognition Letters, Concurrency and Computation, Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, IET Software, PLOS ONE.
• Editorial: scientific committee, ACI Avances en Ciencias e Ingenierías, since 2021 · review board, Sustainable, Innovative and Intelligent Societies and Cities (EAI/Springer), 2022.
• Evaluation: project expert, Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) · doctoral monitoring committees, EDITE doctoral school.
• Event organisation: Micro and Big thematic school (2023) · Technology and Environment workshop @ EGC 2021 · local organising committee, IEEE ICSOC 2014.

PhD students

• Malek Srouji, LIP6, Sorbonne University and Lebanese University. December 2026 – in progress.
• Suzanne Bassil, LIP6, Sorbonne University and American University of the Middle East. 2026 – in progress.
• Allaa Boutaleb, Representation of tables in data lakes. LIP6, Sorbonne University. October 2024 – in progress. Best Paper Award, TRL Workshop @ ACL 2025.
• Anis Aknouche, Intelligent services for data catalogs (CIFRE with Zeenea). LIP6, Sorbonne University. December 2023 – in progress.
• Souha Al Katat, Aspect-based sentiment analysis with knowledge graph integration. Isep Paris and Lebanese University. January 2022 – July 2025. Now faculty member in Lebanon.
• Hussein Baalbaki, Data quality control in large-scale knowledge graphs. Isep Paris and Lebanese University. December 2020 – December 2023. Now faculty member in Lebanon.
• William Aboucaya, Obstacles to collaboration in participatory platforms. Inria Paris. October 2019 – November 2023. Now research engineer at PSL.
• Shufan Jiang, Document classification in agriculture for hazard detection. Isep Paris and University of Reims, #DigitAg partner. October 2019 – December 2022. Now Associate Professor at IRIT, Toulouse.

Other supervision

• 2 postdoctoral researchers, 1 research engineer and 5 research interns.

At Paris Nanterre University, since 2022

• Complete database curriculum from undergraduate to Master’s level: relational databases, business intelligence, Big Data, NoSQL and data lakes.
• New Master’s course: Data and Knowledge Engineering for Large Language Models (RAG and KG-RAG architectures, hybrid SQL/embedding search, knowledge graph modelling, data quality and provenance), opening 2026.
• Year coordinator, L3 MIAGE and dual-degree programmes, since 2023.
• Vice-President, Consultative Disciplinary Committee, since 2025.
• Member, Research Ethics Committee (Comité d’éthique de la recherche), since September 2026.
• Guest lecturer at Télécom Paris and 3iL.

Previously

• Isep, 2017–2022: advanced databases and Big Data, Semantic Web and knowledge management, project-based introduction to computer science; Data Protection Officer Master’s program (introduction to computer science, networking and the Web, Big Data, cookies and tracking); Civic Tech and Disruptive Technologies, joint course with the Catholic University of Paris; training high-school teachers for the national Computer Science programme (NSI).
• CNAM: advanced databases and Big Data.
• Earlier, since 2004: Paris Nanterre University (ATER, 2015–2016), Paris Dauphine University - PSL, Simon Bolivar University and Andres Bello Catholic University; MOOC on citizen participation and Civic Tech.