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 & 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.
Yuanyuan Li
Postdoc
since 2025
Capacity management
Université de Montréal
Jasone Miren Ramirez Ayerbe
Postdoc
since 2024
Relative counterfactual explanations for contextual optimization problems subject to endogenous uncertainty
Université de Montréal.
PhD Students
Gabriel Fortin-Leblanc
PhD student since September 2024
Topic: Contextual optimization
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
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: Service network design for intermodal railway freight transportation
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Teodor Gabriel Crainic
Master and Undergraduate Students
Cheng Dong Zhang
Master student
since May 2025
Counterfactual explanations for contextual stochastic optimization
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Former Postdocs, Students, Interns & Visitors
Pham Hoang Giang
Master thesis: Locomotive routing problems
Béatrice Hajjar
Master thesis: Stochastic locomotive routing
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Amine Ikama
Postdoc: Track planning at intermodal railway terminals
Steven Lamontagne
Topic: Strategic planning of intracity electric vehicle charging station locations with integrated advanced demand dynamics
September 2018 - May 2024
DIRO, Université de Montréal.
Supervisor: Bernard Gendron
Co-supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Stéphanie Larocque
Master Thesis: Meta-enseignement: Génération active d'exemples par apprentissage par renforcement
September 2017 - May 2020
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Yoshua Bengio
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Eric Larsen
January 2017 - January 2025
Université de Montréal
Supervisor : Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Bernard Gendron
Robin Legault
Topic: Efficient reformulations for deterministic and choice-based network design problems
August 2021 - August 2023
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Bernard Gendron
Tien Mai
Doctoral dissertation: Dynamic programming approaches for estimating and applying large-scale discrete choice models
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
Pedro Miranda
Postdoc: Locomotive routing
problems
June 2018 - January 2021
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Jean-François Cordeau
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
CIRRELT, HEC Montréal
Sobhan Mohammadpour
Topic: On choice models in the context of MDPs
Gianluca Morganti
Master thesis : Tactical Block Planning for Intermodal Rail Transportation
September 2019-May 2020
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Teodor Gabriel Crainic
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
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
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
David Pinzon
August 2018 - January 2025
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Bernard Gendron
Co-supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Jean-Philippe Raymond
Bachelor's: 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 : Data-driven large neighbourhood search for combinatorial optimization problems
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
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
Yousra Saadaoui
Master thesis: The berth allocation problem at port terminals : a column generation framework
May 2014 - August 2015
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Wisang Sugiarta
August 2021- August 2023
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Julien Sylvestre
Master thesis: Impacts of new logistic centres in urban areas
September 2016 - March 2017
Polytechnique Montréal
Supervisor: Martin Trépanier
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Nitish Umang
Postdoc: Intermodal container allocation problems in rail yards
Matt Amini
Topic: Forecasting for operational planning of M1M systems
Luca Bataillard
Topic: Decision focused learning for
transport network design
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
Hena Ghonia
Visiting Master student
Topic: Machine Learning Project
Internship Summer 2023
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Kyle Goyette
Master thesis: On Two Sequential Problems: The Load Planning and Sequencing problem and the Non-Normal Recurrent Neural Network
Julien Hébert-Doutreloux
Topic: Nouvelle contraction algébrique appliquée au problème de tarification de réseau
January 2023 - January 2025
DIRO, Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Margarida Carvalho
Co-supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Drew Kristensen
Topic: On inverse reinforcement learning and dynamic discrete choice for predicting path choices
Greta Laage
Topic: Models for Integrated Demand Forecasting and Planning: Application to Large-scale Transportation Networks and Impact Assessment
September 2016 - August 2021
Polytechnique Montréal
Supervisor: Gilles Savard
Co-Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Linchuan Wei
Postdoc: Truck slot allocation
Shohre Zehtabian
Master thesis: 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
Maëlle Zimmerman
Topic: Route choice and traffic equilibrium modeling in multi-modal and activity-based networks
May 2015 - August 2019
Université de Montréal
Supervisor: Emma Frejinger
Co-supervisor: Patrice Marcotte