My Background

I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2022 from La Rochelle Université, focusing on Computer Vision (CV) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). My thesis proposed multimodal document understanding frameworks that unify vision and language in a cross-modal learning setting. I obtained an engineering degree (M.Eng) in Information Technology from INPT in Morocco.

Current Role

I am an Enseignant-Chercheur Contractuel and Research Scientist at IRISA-Lab, ESIR, Université de Rennes, within the SHADOC team (Rennes, France). Previously, I was an Associate Professor at L3i-Lab, La Rochelle Université (2023-2025), and a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in 2023.

Research Interests

My work centers on multimodal AI for document understanding, including vision-language models, document classification and retrieval, abstractive summarization, and low-resource scene-text recognition. I also work on explainable multimodal systems, privacy-aware learning (federated approaches), and reliable RAG pipelines for knowledge-grounded document applications.

Selected Impact

I have authored 20 peer-reviewed publications (226 citations, H-index 6) and secured 501,500 EUR in competitive funding as PI/Co-PI. I currently co-supervise PhD students and contribute to international collaborations across Europe and Asia.

Research Activities

Grants and Funding ======

• PI: DocInnovate (ACI JCJC 2024), 7,000 EUR
• Co-PI: FELM (EU-CONEXUS 2025-2027), 153,000 EUR
• Co-PI: FlexChain (2025-2027), 124,000 EUR
• Co-PI: ModamPadoc (RNA-LRU 2025-2027), 120,000 EUR
• Co-PI: AI for ECO-WELLNESS (PHC PERIDOT 2024-2026), 28,000 EUR
• Additional projects: 69,500 EUR

Collaborations

• CVC (UAB, Spain), KU Leuven (Belgium), L2TI (France)
• SETU (Ireland), Josef Stefan Institute (Slovenia), USTH (Vietnam)
• Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology, MNS University (Pakistan)
• Industry: Allread ML Technologies (Spain), Siren Company (France)

Supervision and Mentoring

• Co-supervising PhD students on low-resource scene-text recognition and explainable multimodal document understanding
• Supervised M1/M2 and B3 projects across France, India, and Vietnam

Service and Leadership

• Organizer and moderator: Research Reading Group (L3i, 2023-present)
• Organizing committee: ICPR 2024 Call for Competitions; DAS 2022
• Peer review: PR, IJCV, EAAI, Neurocomputing; ICDAR, ICPR, ICIP, LREC-COLING

More Detail

• Research Activities: /research-activities/

Contact

• Email: souhail.bakkali@irisa.fr
• Website: https://sbakkalii.github.io/
• CV (PDF): /files/Sbakkali_CV-2.pdf
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gO_Q48IAAAAJ
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/souhail-bakkali/
• GitHub: https://github.com/Sbakkalii
• ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9383-3842