Hello ! I am hiring Postdocs, Ph.D. Students, and Ph.D. Interns. Please email the following:
- Curriculum Vitae and Transcripts,
- Briefly, why do you want to pursue a Postdoc, Ph.D. Program, or Ph.D. Internship?
- Briefly, why do you want to work with me?
- Briefly, what is your career plan, e.g., Academia or Industry?
Contact: el-mehdi.er-raqabi [at] fsa.ulaval [dot] ca
Academic Bio
I am an Assistant Professor in Operations and Decision Systems at Faculty of Business Administration (FSA DSO), Laval University. I am also a Research Affiliate at the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) and the NSF AI Research Institute for Advances in Optimization (AI4OPT), Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to that, I spent one year as a Postdoctoral Researcher at ISyE & AI4OPT, working with Prof. Pascal Van Hentenryck.
I obtained my Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Mathematics and Industrial Engineering Department of Polytechnique Montreal (Poly) and the Groupe d’Études et de Recherche en Analyse des Décisions (GERAD), advised by Professors El Hallaoui Issmaïl & Soumis François. During my Ph.D. curriculum, I was a Visiting Scholar at the Faculty of Economics and Business of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) in 2024, advised by Professor Roel Leus, and a Visiting Scholar at the Business School of Griffith University (Griff) in 2023, advised by Professor Yong Wu. Prior to Poly, I obtained an MBA from the International University of Japan (IUJ) in 2019, advised by Professor Li Wenkai.
My research focuses on primal techniques for large-scale optimization. Specifically, I have been exploring the full optimization spectrum that goes from using optimization solvers to using optimization proxies. The full spectrum can be decomposed into four overlapping perspectives: solver (commercial, open-source, etc.), metaheuristics (local search, simulated annealing, etc.), exact (decompositions, branch-and-price, etc.), and learning (supervised, unsupervised, etc.).
My Research has been generously supported by numerous organizations including: the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Nature et Technologie (FRQNT), the Institut de Valorisation des Données (IVADO), the Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS), and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Over the last 10 years, I have collaborated with 20+ world-class companies, research institutes, organizations, and NGOs across the U.S., Canada, Australia, Belgium, Japan, and Morocco.
My Curriculum Vitae can be found here.
News
- 12/12/2025: I completed my Postodc at the Georgia Institute of Technology and will continue collaborations as a Research Affiliate starting January 2026 🚀
- 14/11/2025: I will join Laval University as an Assistant Professor starting January 2026 🚀
- 14/08/2025: Paper “A Decomposition Matheuristic for the Transient Stability Constrained Unit Commitment at Hydro-Quebec” was accepted to Journal IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 🎉
- 24/04/2025: I was awarded the GERAD 2024 Best Thesis Competition at GERAD 🎉
- 07/03/2025: I was awarded the MAGI 2024 Best Thesis Prize at Polytechnique Montreal 🎉
- 01/02/2025: I started my Postdoc at the Georgia Institute of Technology 🚀
- 22/01/2025: Paper “OCP Optimizes Its Supply Chain for Africa” was accepted to Journal INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics 🎉
- 20/12/2024: I earned my Ph.D. today. The jury has recommended the thesis for the Best Thesis Prize at Polytechnique Montreal 🎉
- 13/12/2024: Doctoral Thesis Defense Announcement 📢
- 11/10/2024: Paper “Towards Resilience: Primal Large-scale Re-optimization” was accepted to Journal Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review 🎉
- 03/07/2024: Research Project “OCP Optimizes Its Supply Chain for Africa and The World” has been selected as a Winner at the EURO Excellence in Practice Award 2024 🎉
