I am a full professor at Université Côte d'Azur, where my research affiliation is the I3S laboratory and my teaching affiliation is the Polytech Nice Sophia (PNS) engineer school.

I am vice-head of Wimmics, a joint research team between the I3S laboratory and the Inria center at UCA, part of the SPARKS pole. My research interests are in the field of Artificial Intelligence. My research topics are in the AI subfields of knowledge management and the semantic web. I am a specialist in graph-based knowledge representation and reasoning and interested in the development of hybrid intelligent systems combining KRR and machine learning techniques. My work aims at the extraction, integration, modeling, validation, and exploitation of web-based knowledge and resources for various epistemic communities. My main application areas are education, health, biological sciences, and digital humanities.

I lead the joint training program on Artificial Intelligence and Data Engineering (IAID) of the final training year of Polytech Nice Sophia (PNS) engineer school and the UCA master 2 in Computer Science. I am responsible of several courses related to my research domain (Web of Data, Semantic Web, Knowledge Engineering) in different French or international training programs, and general courses on databases. I am the pedagogical manager of continuing education for the Computer Science dpt of PNS.

From 2013 to 2021 I was board member of the French society for Artificial Intelligence (AFIA), treasurer from 2015. In 2015, I co-funded and led the AFIA college on Knowledge Engineering and I am now member of its steering committee.

Program chair of the French Conference on Knowledge Extraction and Management, EGC 2023

Program co-chair of the Int. Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Management, EKAW 2018

Program co-chair of the Int. Conference on Semantic Systems, Semantics 2017

Program co-chair of the Int. Conference on Conceptual Structures, ICCS 2016

Co-chair of the ESWC workshops on Semantic Web for Scientific Heritage SW4SH 2015, 2016, 2017

Workshops co-chair of the European Semantic Web Conference, ESWC 2015

Program chair of the French Conference on Knowledge Engineering, IC 2014

On-going projects

ISSA2, CollEx-Persee, 2023-2025 (participant)
This project aims to the development of a generic solution reusable and extensible solution for optimising bibliographic search in an open scientific archive
Partner: CIRAD, Inria-UCA, IMT-Ales

AutomaZoo, UCA, 2022-2023 (co-scientific leader)
This project aims to the semantic anotation of ancient texts in zoology and the construction of a knowledge graph describing them. In this context, I am co-supevising the engineer work of Arnaud Barbe.
Partner: CEPAM (UCA), I3S (UCA)

DEKALOG, ANR, AAPG CE23, 2020-2023 (participant)
This project aims to propose a model with fair access policies to knowledge graphs on the Web, without quotas while ensuring complete responses to any query, to enable automation of the Web, i.e. to enable agents or robots to interact with Knowledge Graphs. In this context, I am co-supervising Pierre Maillot's post-doctoral work on the automatic generation of annotations for RDF datasets and SPARQL endpoints and their grouping in a global index based on Web of Data standards.
Partners: Inria-UCA, LS2N (Univ. Nantes), LIRIS (Univ. Lyon)

D2KAB, ANR, AAPG CE23, 2018-2024 (scientific leader for I3S)
The aim of this project is to transform agronomy and biodiversity data into knowledge using Web of Data principles and standards, and to demonstrate the value of this knowledge engineering work in exploiting this knowledge. In this context I am interested in RDF lifting and the integration of heterogeneous data in agronomy and the federation of different sources to offer a single entry point with navigation and semantic query services providing a unified view of the data collected. I co-supervised the master's courses of Frédéric Météreau, Aymeric Rebuffel and Arnaud Barbe, and I am supervising the post-doctoral work of Nadia Yacoubi.
Partners: BMIR (Stanford Univ.), CEFE (CNRS), DIST (INRAE), I3S (CNRS), LIRMM (Univ. Montpellier), MaIAGE (INRAE), TSCF (INRAE), URFM (INRAE), URGI (INRAE)

Past projects

Curiosity, collaborative project, 2019-2022 (scientific leader)
The aim of this project was to develop an approach for automatically indexing and semantically annotating heterogeneous educational resources from different sources in order to offer educational resources and training paths that correspond to the learner's needs and learning objectives. In this context, I supervised the post-doctoral work of Molka Tounsi.
Partners: Inria-UCA, TeachOnMars

SIDES 3.0, ANR, AAP DUNE, 2017-2021 (scientific leader for Inria-UCA)
The aim of this project was to create an intelligent digital training environment for all the medical faculties in France. In this context, I was interested in personalised training exercise recommendations, based on the prediction of a learner's success in an exercise using the OntoSIDES knowledge graph. I supervised the postdoctoral work of Oscar Rodriguez and Anna Bobasheva, and the master's thesis of Mathis Lequiniou. Antonia Ettorre's PhD thesis follows on from this project.
Partners: ENS-PSL, Inria Grenoble, Inria-UCA, LIG (UGA), Samsei, UNESS, Viseo

PREMISSE, collaborative project, 2017-2021 (scientific leader)
The aim of this project was to propose a decision support system in the field of sourcing by exploiting knowledge extracted from textual descriptions of service requests and suppliers, in order to recommend relevant suppliers for a service request. In this context, I co-supervised Molka Tounsi Dhouib's PhD thesis.
Partners: I3S, Silex

HealthPredict, collaborative project, 2016-2021 (scientific leader)
The aim of this project was to design a digital health solution for the early management of patients based on their shared medical records (consultations with GPs and care circuits). We were interested in predicting a patient's hospitalisation on the basis of data on symptoms, diagnoses and medical treatments in the population. In this context, I co-supervised Raphaël Gazzotti's PhD thesis.
Partners: CHU Nice, I3S, Synchronext

Smart Enseigno, P2IA, MEN, 2019-2020 (scientific leader for Inria)
The aim of this project was to develop an educational platform based on Semantic Web technologies. Within this framework, we continued the work begun in the EduMICS labcom (see below). I also supervised Yuting Sun's master's thesis on the prediction of student success based on the activity traces of a set of students represented in the platform's knowledge graph.
Partners: Educlever, Cabrilog, Ludotic, Inria

EduMICS, Inria Innovation Lab, 2016-2018 (scientific leader)
The aim of this project was to develop a modular ontological repository for the semantic annotation of educational content produced by Educlever, with the aim of integrating and reasoning about these heterogeneous sources of knowledge to produce value-added educational services. In this context, I supervised the post-doctoral research work of Géraud Fokou.
Partners: Inria, Educlever

Intelliquiz, Carnot, ANR, 2016-2018 (scientific leader)
The aim of this project was to automatically generate quizzes from example questions in natural language taken from the game 'Les Incollables' and a domain ontology developed to model the targeted educational domain. In this context, I supervised the post-doctoral research work of Oscar Rodriguez. This project was a continuation of the Semantic Educloud project (see below).
Partners: Gayatech/Qwant, Inria

Semantic Educloud, Carnot, ANR, 2015-2016 (scientific leader)
The aim of this project was to develop an ontological model of a serious game on the Educloud platform, with a view to adapting the game flow and the recommendation of teaching resources to the context of the game and the learner's profile. In this context, I supervised the post-doctoral research work of Oscar Rodriguez.
Partners: Gayatech, Inria

Zoomathia, GDRI CNRS, 2014-2017 (scientific leader for I3S)
The aim of this multidisciplinary and international research group on digital humanities was to study the transmission of zoological knowledge in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In this context, I became interested in the extraction of knowledge from texts and structured data and the integration of heterogeneous data in the field of zoology, with the aim of providing value-added services to support the analysis of the transmission of knowledge. I co-supervised the master's theses of Molka Tounsi, Konstantina Poulida and Safaa Rziou, as well as the post-doctoral research work of Irène Pajon and Emmanuelle Khury. Franck Michel's PhD work also partly took place within this project.
Partners: CRAHAM (Univ. Caen), CEPAM (UCA), INCAL (Louvain-la Neuve), I3S (UCA), IRHT, Ithaca (Cornell Univ.), MNHN, Univ. Sienne, Univ. Trier

ORPHEE, ANR network, 2014-2017 (participant)
The aim of this network was to bring together researchers in the field of e-Education in France.
Partners: CLIF, CLLE, Cirel, Paragraph, E3S, Heudiasyc, I3S, ICAR, IFE, INRIA, IRIT, LES, Lab-STICC/IMT Telecom Bretagne, LIDILEM, LIFL, LIG, LINA, LIP6, LIRIS, LITIS, LIUM, LIUPPA, LORIA, LTCI, MIS, SAMOVAR, STEF, VORTEX

AZKAR, BPI, 2014-2016 (participant)
The aim of this project was service robotics and its integration with the Internet based on real-time web development techniques. I was interested in modelling scenes from the First World War museum in Meaux to enable a robot-assisted remote visit to the museum. I co-supervised Hatim Aouzal's master's thesis.
Partners: notherworld, I3S

SMILK, LabCom ANR, 2013-2016 (participant)
The aim of this project was to develop methods and tools for extracting, analysing, linking and reasoning about data from Web text resources, and to use the Web of Data to improve the analysis and understanding of text resources. In this context, I co-supervised Molka Tounsi's work on the construction of RDF data sources from Web text resources.
Partners: Inria-SAM, Viseo

OCKTOPUS, ANR, 2012-2016 (participant)
This project aimed to increase the social and economic added value of the mass of user-generated content on the Web, by transforming it into useful knowledge. In this context, I co-supervised Zide Meng's PhD thesis on the extraction and semantic analysis of social networks in question-and-answer sites.
Partners: Alcméon, CRG (Sorbonne Univ.), Inria-SAM

CrEDIBLE, Défi MASTODONS, CNRS, 2012-2015 (participant)
This project focused on the federation of distributed data and knowledge in the field of biomedical imaging. In this context, I co-supervised Franck Michel's PhD thesis on extracting and querying RDF data from non-relational heterogeneous data.
Partners: I3S, Inria-SAM, LTSI (Univ. Rennes 1), MIS (Univ. Picardie), CREATIS (INSA Lyon)

ISICIL, ANR, 2008-2012 (participant)
This project focused on the semantic integration of information in online epistemic communities. In this context, I co-supervised Anna Kolomoyskaya's master's thesis on the semantic management of access rights in a semantic wiki, taking into account users' social relations.
Partners: ADEME, I3S, Inria-SAM, Institut Telecom, UTT

Collaborative project with CSTB, 2005-2013 (co-scientific leader)
This collaboration focused on the management of technical and regulatory knowledge using Semantic Web models and techniques. In this context, I co-supervised Anastasiya Yurchyshyna's PhD thesis on checking the compliance of construction projects with regulatory constraints, and Khalil Riad Bouzidi's PhD thesis on assisting with the drafting and validation of technical documents.
Partners: I3S, CSTB

Bilateral project with LabGED, DRI CNRS/DPGRF, 010-2012 (scientific leader for I3S)
This project focused on adapting learning environments to users, using Semantic Web models and techniques. In this context, I co-supervised the PhD theses of Samia Beldjoudi and Khaled Halimi on the intelligent recommendation of educational resources based on learners' interactions in their learning environment.
Partners: I3S, LabGED (Univ. Annaba, Algeria)

DESIR, COLOR Inria, 2009 (participant)
The aim of this project was to capture and capitalise on the business processes of INRA's agronomists and geneticists in various heterogeneous databases.
Partners: Inria-SAM, I3S, INRA

GRIWES, COLOR Inria, 2007 (participant)
The aim of this project was to capture and capitalise on the business processes of INRA's agronomists and geneticists in various heterogeneous databases. In this context, we focused on the semantic annotation, capitalisation and reuse of R programs.
Partners: Inria-SAM, I3S, LIRMM

WebLearn, COLOR Inria et AS CNRS, 2004-2005 (participant)
The aim of this project was to study the possible applications of emerging semantic web technologies and web services for e-learning.
Partners: ENST Bretagne, Inria-SAM, LIRMM, LORIA, Univ. Pau, UTC

TRIAL SOLUTION, IST-1999-11397 EU, 1999-2001 (participant)
The aim of this project was to produce customised documents based on the slicing up of existing books into elementary teaching resources. I was interested in the semantic annotation of the resources, their content, their pedagogical characteristics and their interrelationships.

CoMMA, EU, 2000-2002 (participant)
The aim of this project was to develop and test a corporate memory management environment. In this context, we focused on the integration of emerging Semantic Web technologies for document annotation and semantic information retrieval.
Partners: ATOS Origin Integration, CSELT, Inria-SAM, LIRMM, université de PARME, T-NOVA (Deutsche Telekom)

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Head of the joint training program on Artificial Intelligence & Data Engineering (IAID) of the PNS final training year and the DS4H master in Computer Science

Pedagogical manager of continuing education for the Computer Science department of PNS

Course: Web of Data (PNS, IAID and EIT Digital Master in Data Science)

Course: Semantic Web (PNS, IAID)

Course: Knowledge Engineering (PNS, IAID)

Course: Web of Data (DS4H, MSc Data Science and Artificial Intelligence)

Course: Relational Databases (PNS, Computer Science and Math departments)

Course: XML technologies (PNS, Computer Science and Math departments)

MOOC: Web sémantique et Web de données (FUN, FR, session 1 in 2015)

MOOC: Introduction to a Web of Linked Data (FUN, FR, session 1 in 2016)

MOOC: Web of Data (Coursera, EN, session 1 in 2019)

Book: Le web sémantique - Comment lier les données et les schémas sur le web ?, Dunod, 2013

Office: Campus Sophi@Tech, Building Templiers E, Room 427

Postal address: I3S, 930 Route des Colles, BP 145, 06903 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Email: Catherine.Faron-Zucker@univ-cotedazur.fr | Catherine.Faron@inria.fr