[3][4] Blondel studied philosophy, mathematics, engineering and computer science in Louvain-la-Neuve, Grenoble, London and Oxford.

He completed a master thesis in engineering at the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, he holds a MSc in mathematics from Imperial College of Science and Technology and a degree in philosophy, a master's degree in engineering (summa cum laude) and a PhD in applied mathematics from Université catholique de Louvain.

From 1995 to 1999 he was an assistant professor at the Institute of Mathematics of the Université de Liège before joining the Louvain School of Engineering of UCLouvain where he has been since then.

In 2005-2006 he was a visiting professor and a Fulbright scholar with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 2010-2011 he was a visiting professor with the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.