
Team
The team is composed of PhD students, MSc students, postdoctoral fellows, two part-time research associates and an administrative assistant. Most of the students are co-supervised with colleagues at Université de Montréal and École Polytechnique Montréal, Yoshua Bengio, Jean-François Cordeau, Teodor Crainic,
Bernard Gendron, Simon Lacoste-Julien,
Andrea Lodi and Gilles Savard.

Postdocs &Â Research Associates

Serge Bisaillon
Research Associate (part time)
since 2017
Develops and implements large-scale optimization methods for railway applications, enrolled in the activities of the CN Chair in Optimization of Railway Operations.
CIRRELT, Université de Montréal.

Eric Larsen
Research Associate
since 2016
Implements large-scale optimization and machine learning methods for railway applications, enrolled in the activities of the CN Chair in Optimization of Railway Operations.CIRRELT, Université de Montréal.

Ammar Metnani
Research Associate
since 2022
Develops and implements large-scale optimization methods for railway applications, enrolled in the activities of the CN Chair in Optimization of Railway Operations.
CIRRELT, Université de Montréal.
PhD Students

Benjamin Hudson
PhD student since September 2023
Topic: Learning and optimization for transportation
DIRO, Université de Montréal.
Supervisor: Laurent Charlin, HEC
Co-supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Julie Kienzle
PhD student since August 2018
Topic: Revenue management and service network design for railway freight transportation
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Teodor Gabriel Crainic

David Pinzon
PhD student since January 2018
Topic: Two-stage stochastic bilevel programming model for a logistics provider’s profit maximization.
DIRO, Université de Montréal.
Supervisor: Bernard Gendron
Co-supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Master and Undergraduate Students

Béatrice Hajjar
Master student starting Fall 2022
(Internship Summer 2022)
Topic: Locomotive fleet management
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Julien Hébert-Doutreloux
Master student since January 2023
Topic: Graph transformations for network pricing problems
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Former Postdocs, Students, Interns & Visitors

Pham Hoang Giang
Master thesis: Locomotive routing problems
September 2018 - May 2020
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Jean-François Cordeau

Amine Ikama
Postdoc:Â Track planning at intermodal railway terminals
May 2015 - September 2016
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Last known position: Data Scientist, IVADO Labs

Zacharie Klok
Master thesis: Modélisation du comportement des camionneurs
May 2013 - January 2015
Université de Montréal
Principal Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Last known position: Back End Developer, SuccessFinder

Tien Mai
Doctoral dissertation:Â Dynamic programming approaches for estimating and applying large-scale discrete choice models
January 2013 - March 2016
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Last known position: MIT-SMART Scholar Fellowship, MIT Singapore

Serena Mantovani
Master thesis : The load planning problem for double-stack intermodal trains
September 2019 - May 2020
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Teodor Gabriel Crainic
Last known position: Program Manager, Amazon Air

Pedro Miranda
Postdoc: Locomotive routing
problems
June 2018 - January 2021
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Jean-François Cordeau
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
CIRRELT, HEC Montréal
Last known position: Data Scientist, SAP

Sobhan Mohammadpour
Topic: Large-scale travel time estimation and inverse shortest path problems
September 2019 - August 2023
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
​

Gianluca Morganti
Master thesis : Service network design for intermodal railway transportation
September 2019-May 2020
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Teodor Gabriel Crainic
Last known position: Business Intelligence Analyst, Amazon

Erik Nygren
Visiting Researcher
Topic: Real-time rescheduling of trains
July 15 to December 15, 2019 Affiliation: Research and Innovation Lab at Swiss Federal Railways SBB

Nurit Oliker
Postdoc: Transportation network design and stochastic demand
October 2018 - August 2021
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Bernard Gendron
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Camilo Ortiz
Postdoc: Locomotive assignment problems
May 2017 - May 2019
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Jean-François Cordeau
Last known position: Assistant Professor, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia

Daianne Pabst
Master thesis: Évaluation du prix des options style américain avec la programmation dynamique et la simulation stochastique
June 2017 - June 2018
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

William Perreault
Master thesis: Load planning and sequencing for double-stack trains
January 2017 - January 2019
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Last known position: Consultant, Modelling and Decision Support, Direxyon

Bruno Petrato Bruck
Topic : Modelling inbound train split and container loading intermodal railway terminals
May 2016 - May 2018
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Jean-François Cordeau
Last known position: Assistant professor, Universidade Federal da ParaÃba

Jean-Philippe Raymond
Bachelor's:Â Comparison of Route Choice Models' Predictive Performance
May 2014 - July 2015
Université de Montréal
(semester project and extensions)
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Charly Robinson La Rocca
Topic : Locomotive fleet management
January 2019 - January 2025
DIRO, Université de Montréal.
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Jean-François Cordeau

Moritz Ruf
Visiting PhD Student
Topic: The Load Planning and Sequencing Problem for Double-Stack Intermodal Trains
October 2017 - March 2018
Collaboration with Jean-François Cordeau and Emma Frejinger
Last known position: PhD student at the Institute of Railway Systems and Public Transport, Technische Universität Dresden

Leonard Ryo Morin
Topic: Flow capture models with heterogeneous user behavior
September 2013 - May 2020
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisors: Fabian Bastin, Bernard Gendron
Last known position: Scientific software developer, INRO Software

Yosra Saadaoui
Master thesis:Â A column generation framework to berth scheduling in port terminals
May 2014 - August 2015
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Wisang Sugiarta
Topic: A topic at the intersection between operations research and machine learning
August 2021- August 2023
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Julien Sylvestre
Master thesis:Â Impacts of new logistic centres in urban areas
September 2016 - March 2017
Polytechnique Montréal
Supervisor: Martin Trépanier
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Last known position: Succession Development Program, Logistec Corporation

Nitish Umang
Postdoc:Â Intermodal container allocation problems in rail yards
May 2014 - July 2015
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Last known position: Operations Researcher, GE Global Research

Shore Zehtabian
Master thesis:Â Development of new scenario decomposition techniques for linear and nonlinear stochastic programming
September 2016 - January 2017
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Fabian Bastin
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Last known position: Senior Data Scientist Yellow Pages

Maëlle Zimmerman
Topic: Path choice prediction and traffic equilibrium in multimodal networks
May 2015 - August 2019
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Patrice Marcotte
Last known position: Data Scientist, IVADO Labs

Mohammad Amini
Topic: Demand forecasting for freight transportation.
July 2020 - December 2021
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Luca Bataillard
Topic: Decision focused learning for
transport network design
March 2023 - September 2023
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Supervisor: Michel Bieraire

Renaud Chichoisne
Postdoc: Track planning at intermodal railway terminals
September 2017 - August 2018
Supervisor: Jean-Francois Cordeau
Co-supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Justin Dumouchelle
Topic: Applications of machine learning to combinatorial optimization problems
September 2020 - August 2021
Polytechnique Montréal
Supervisor: Andrea Lodi
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Last known position: PhD student University of Toronto

Hena Ghonia
Visiting Master student
Topic: Machine Learning Project​
Internship Summer 2023
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Kyle Goyette
Master thesis: Approximative dynamic programming and reinforcement learning for solving container load and scheduling problems
September 2017- May 2020
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Drew Kristensen
Topic: Inverse reinforcement learning for predicting route choice behaviour
May 2019 - October 2021
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
​

Greta Laage
Topic: Demand forecasting for freight transportation
September 2016 - August 2021
Polytechnique Montréal
Supervisor: Gilles Savard
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Last known position: Data Scientist, IVADO Labs

Steven Lamontagne
Topic: Optimisation of electric vehicle charging station placement
September 2018 - May 2024
DIRO, Université de Montréal.
Supervisor: Bernard Gendron
Co-supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Stéphanie Larocque
Master Thesis: A reinforcement learning approach for generating data on discrete optimization problem instances and solutions.
September 2017 - May 2020
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Yoshua Bengio
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger

Eric Larsen
Topic: Optimization of operations at intermodal railway terminals
January 2017 - January 2025
Université de Montréal
Supervisor : Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Bernard Gendron

Robin Legault
Topic: Bilevel programming with demand prediction models.
August 2021 - August 2023
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Bernard Gendron