PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Boualem Benatallah

Boualem Benatallah is a computing professor whose research connects service composition with conversational AI. He earned computer science degrees at Oran University of Technology and Grenoble, and worked at Queensland University of Technology and James Cook University before research leadership at UNSW. At UNSW, he led a group aiming to connect natural-language conversations to digital services, and his team built Case Walls for evidence analysis; IEEE named him a Fellow in 2022. He coauthored a 2025 retrospective on service composition and LLM agents, and in June 2026 he is a Full Professor and Principal Researcher at Dublin City University, where he leads international AI projects.

Born
1966
Works
655
Citations
18,225
h-index
61
Badges

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1991–1996

    Computing degrees at Oran and Grenoble

    At Oran University of Technology, he earns a five-year BSc (Hons) in Computer Science in 1991. He earns an MSc-DEA through Grenoble INP in 1992 and a PhD at Grenoble 1–Joseph Fourier University in 1996.

  2. 2006–2008

    Research Director at UNSW

    Earlier in his academic career, he works as an academic at Queensland University of Technology and James Cook University. From 2006 to 2008, he serves as School Research Director at UNSW's School of Computer Science and Engineering, chairs the school research committee and sits on the faculty research committee.

  3. 2020

    Conversational services at UNSW

    In 2020, he heads UNSW's Service-Oriented Computing Research Group. Its work spans web service engineering, business process management, crowdsourcing, data curation, cognitive services and cloud computing; the group aims to connect natural-language conversations with digital services and processes through cognitive services and APIs.

  4. 2020

    Case Walls for investigators

    In 2020, his team builds Case Walls, a cognitive investigation case-management system that uses natural-language processing, word embeddings and knowledge-based enrichment from knowledge graphs. It recognizes people, events and offences in evidence items.

  5. 2022

    An IEEE Fellowship

    In 2022, IEEE names him a Fellow for contributions to declarative service composition and web services middleware.

  6. 2022

    Professor at Dublin City University

    In January 2022, he joins Dublin City University as a full professor of computing after over 21 years at UNSW. He holds the Full Professor role in DCU's School of Computing.

  7. 2025

    Service composition meets LLM agents

    In 2025, he coauthors “QoS-Aware Service Composition: A Retrospective.” The paper revisits a 2004 QoS article and traces how service-composition challenges return in large language model agents.

  8. June 2026

    Full Professor and Principal Researcher

    In June 2026, he serves as a Full Professor and Principal Researcher at Dublin City University, where he leads international research projects in digital transformation, artificial intelligence and advanced information technologies.

Career

  1. Since 2022Dublin City UniversityFull Professor of Computing
  2. 2024–2026Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics
  3. 2020–2022Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon
  4. 2006–2022UNSW SydneySchool Research Director, Head
  5. 2003–2006Clermont Auvergne INP
  6. 1999–2002James Cook UniversityAcademic
  7. 1998–2002Queensland University of TechnologyAcademic

Education

  1. 1996Joseph Fourier University (Grenoble 1)PhD
  2. 1992Institut polytechnique de GrenobleMSc
  3. 1991Oran University of TechnologyBSc (Hons) in Computer Science

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Dublin City University. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes UNSW Sydney. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes UNSW Sydney. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes UNSW Sydney. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Boualem Benatallah – APT aptcentre.ie. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Making a difference with cognitive services technology unsw.edu.au. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. CSE Scientia Prof Boualem Benatallah a IEEE 2022 Elevated Fellow unsw.edu.au. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Boualem Benatallah | Dublin City University dcu.ie. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. QoS-Aware Service Composition: A Retrospective for IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering - IBM Research research.ibm.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Receives Professor Boualem Benatallah, One of Algeria’s Leading Global Experts in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science – Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research mesrs.dz. Checked 21 October 2026.