Zinal Winter School on

Data Science, Optimization and Operations Research

January 19 - 24, 2025

Hotel Europe, Zinal, Switzerland

Registration is now closed.

The objective of the Winter School is to expose the audience to modern topics on Data Science, Optimization and Operations Research. Every year, two prominent researchers are invited to provide tutorials on selected topics, and to discuss some of their recent research with the students. Designed for doctoral education, the course is open to academic researchers (professors, researchers, PhD students) and professionals (from industry and public authorities), interested in optimization and operations research. The course is organized by Prof. Michel Bierlaire, Transport and Mobility Laboratory (TRANSP-OR), School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne (EPFL). It takes place in Zinal, a ski resort in the Swiss Alps. The special environment triggers a specific atmosphere that encourages scientific and personal exchanges among the participants. In addition to the lectures, workshops will be organized every day where the students will have the opportunity to work on recent papers of the invited lecturers, under their guidance.

Katya Scheinberg

Georgia Tech

Katya Scheinberg

Katya Scheinberg is a Coca-Cola Foundation Chair and Professor at the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Georgia Tech she held positions at Cornell and Lehigh Universities and at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. She attended Moscow University for her undergraduate studies and received her PhD degree from Columbia University. Katya\’s main research areas are related to developing practical algorithms (and their theoretical analysis) for various problems in continuous optimization, such as convex optimization, derivative free optimization, machine learning, quadratic programming, etc. She is an Informs Fellow, a recipient of the Lagrange Prize from SIAM and MOS, the Farkas Prize from Informs Optimization Society and the Outstanding Simulation Publication award from Informs Simulation Society. Katya is currently the editor-in-chief of Mathematics of Operations Research, and co-editor of Mathematical Programming. She is a Chair-Elect of the Mathematical Optimization Society.

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Pierre Pinson

Imperial College London

Pierre Pinson

Pierre Pinson is the Chair of Data-Centric Design Engineering at Imperial College London, Dyson school of Design Engineering, and Deputy-Head of the School. He is a Chief Scientist at Halfspace, as well as a Professor of Operations Research and Analytics at the Technical University of Denmark. He acts as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Forecasting. His focus areas cover forecasting, optimization and game theory, with power and energy systems as one of the main application areas. He has received the INFORMS Franz Edelman Award 2024 with Molslinjen and Halfspace, for OR and analytics application to passenger ferry operations. He is seen as a leading figure internationally within predictive analytics.

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Transport and Mobility Laboratory

The course is organized by the Transport and Mobility Laboratory, EPFL.

EPFL

Zinal

Venue and accommodation

The winter school will take place at Hotel Europe in Zinal.

  • Welcome cocktail on Sunday at 18:30: main restaurant of the hotel.
  • Lectures and workshops: level -2 of the hotel, in the sport hall.
  • Coffee breaks: main restaurant of the hotel.
  • Banquet dinner on Thursday: main restaurant of the hotel.

    • We recommend the participants to stay at the hotel Europe. Book directly at the hotel, and mention that you are participating to the seminar. If you are not staying at Hotel Europe, you may want to join us for dinner. In that case, please mention it to the hotel.

ECTS

The course is worth 2 ECTS credits. The students who need to be evaluated to obtain the credit must inform the organizer during registration. In order to obtain the credit, the students must participate to the lectures, participate to the workshops, provide an oral presentation, submit a report. The students will be organized by groups. A scientific paper authored by one of the lecturers will be assigned to each group. During the workshops, the students will have the opportunity to interact with the author of the paper. An oral presentation of the paper by the group will be organized.

After the course, each student will prepare a technical report on a topic related to the course. The topic cannot be associated with the same lecturer as the paper presented during the workshop. This is personal work, and the topic should be approved by the lecturer during the workshop. The report should summarize the topic, provide a literature review, and a personal discussion about the topic (strengths and weaknesses, potential applications, possible extensions, etc.) The objective is to show that the students have understood the concepts, and are able to be critical about it. The report does not need to be long (about 10-15 pages).

The workload for the course is 15 hours of lectures, 8 hours of workshop, preparation of the presentations, report writing.

Lectures schedule

From To Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
8:30 10:00 Katya Pierre Katya Pierre Katya
10:00 10:30 Coffee break
10:30 12:00 Pierre Katya Pierre Katya Pierre
12:00 17:00 Sport and discussions
17:00 19:00 Workshop Workshop Presentations Presentations
19:00 Dinner

Students presentations

List of participants

  1. Kuhn Daniel, EPFL (CH)
  2. Rychener Yves, EPFL (CH)
  3. Sen Buse, EPFL (CH)
  4. Li Mengmeng, EPFL (CH)
  5. Zhang Kenan, EPFL (CH)
  6. Gallay Olivier, University of Lausanne (CH)
  7. Tianshu Yang, EPFL (CH)
  8. Renjie Cui, University of Zurich (CH)
  9. Bierlaire Michel, EPFL (CH)
  10. Matsypura Dmytro, The University of Sydney (AU)
  11. Baumann Philipp, University of Bern (CH)
  12. Mantuano Claudio, University of Bern (CH)
  13. Bersier Maude, University of Bern (CH)
  14. De Boeck Jérôme, Université de Liège (BE)
  15. Arthur Chuat, IPESE, EPFL (CH)
  16. Biswas Anubhab, Università della Svizzera italiana (CH)
  17. Widmer Marino, Université de Fribourg - DIUF (CH)
  18. Marija Kukic, EPFL (CH)
  19. Paschalidis Evangelos, EPFL (CH)
  20. cortes balcells cloe, epfl (CH)
  21. Haering Tom, EPFL (CH)
  22. Ketkov Sergei, University of Zurich (CH)
  23. Prokopyev Oleg, University of Zurich (CH)
  24. Clemente Eneko, University of Zurich (CH)
  25. Hou Yiming, University of Zurich (CH)
  26. Falconer Thomas, DTU (DK)
  27. Heiser Yannick, DTU (DK)
  28. Mohamad Koubar, Uppsala University (SE)
  29. Abdullah Mohammed, Open Power (GB)
  30. Aboutorabi Atin, EPFL (CH)
  31. Cintas Albin, EPFL (CH)
  32. Singhal Shobhit, DTU (DK)
  33. Rosseel Arnaud, University of Mons (BE)
  34. Panier Apolline, University of Mons (BE)
  35. Liégeois Loïc, University of Mons (BE)
  36. Derison Marie , Université de Mons (BE)
  37. Genov Evgeny, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BE)
  38. Ries Bernard, University of Fribourg (CH)
  39. Dallard Clément, University of Fribourg (CH)
  40. Dupont Chloé, University of Mons (BE)
  41. TELLACHE Nour Elhouda, University of Fribourg (CH)
  42. Hegde Prabhat, Dartmouth College (US)
  43. Marco Saretta, DTU (DK)
  44. Meritxell Pacheco Paneque, DS&OR (Université de Fribourg) (CH)
  45. Djoenneady Poetera Kevin, RWTH Aachen University (DE)
  46. Zeelenberg Marith, University of Groningen (NL)
  47. Schindl David, University of Fribourg and HEG Genève (CH)
  48. Ricard Léa, EPFL (CH)
  49. Rezvany Negar, EPFL (CH)
  50. XU Zhen, Management School, Liverpool University (CN)
  51. Hesamzadeh Hossein, UMONS (BE)
  52. Giacomo Maggiorano, Université de Lausanne (CH)
  53. Gajda Mikele, University of Lausanne (CH)
  54. Mascarenhas Margarida, KU Leuven (BE)
  55. Zahra Ansarilari, ETH Zurich (CH)
  56. Tomarchio Barbara, EPFL (CH)
  57. Lurkin Virginie, University of Lausanne (CH)
  58. Maddux Anna, EPFL (CH)
  59. Pinson Pierre, Imperial College London (GB)
  60. Schneider Philipp, EPFL (CH)
  61. Schwan Roland, EPFL (CH)
  62. Vogler Prunelle, EPFL (CH)
  63. Ilinov Pavel, EPFL (CH)
  64. Xie Zhuojun, CentraleSupélec (FR)
  65. Scheinberg Katya, Georgia Institute of Technology (CH)
  66. Lachner Tim, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (DE)
  67. Derzbach Robin, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (DE)
  68. Dosse Benjamin, Université de Liège (BE)
  69. Sharifian Ehsan, EPFL (CH)
  70. Belkessa Linda, Université Gustave Eiffel (FR)
  71. Niu Yanan, EPFL (CH)
  72. Andrea Ruglioni, EPFL (CH)
  73. Paul van Kessel, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (NL)
  74. Zhang Jiechen, EPFL (CH)
  75. Bangerter Elise, Université de Fribourg (CH)
  76. Rener Elena, University of Bern (CH)
  77. Djoenneady Poetera Kevin, RWTH Aachen University (DE)