Yacine Chitour was born in Algeria in 1968. He graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, France, in 1990 and obtained a PhD in mathematics from Rutgers University, USA, in 1996. He joined the mathematics department of Universite Paris Sud 11 in 1997 and became full professor in control theory in 2004 at the physics department of Universite Paris Sud 11 and then Universite Paris Saclay in 2020. He was CIMPA scientific officer from 2017 to 2023. He works in geometric and optimal control with an emphasis on sliding and switvhing systems, and also on stabilisation of hyperbolic systems.

He joined the AIMS South Africa Council in November 2024.