Jean Bertrand Gauthier wins the Award for the best master’s thesis
April 25, 2013
On April 17, Jean Bertrand Gauthier (MSc 2011, Management Sciences option) was presented with the 2011-2012 Award for the best master’s thesis, for his thesis entitled Méthode de génération de colonnes pour les problèmes linéaires dégénérés. The jury members – Claude Laurin, MSc Program Director and Full Professor (Accounting), Justin Leroux, Associate Professor (Institute of Applied Economics) and Claudia Rebolledo, Associate Professor (Logistics and Operations Management) – were particularly impressed with the potential spinoff from the thesis.
The thesis was directed by Full Professor Jacques Desrosiers (Management Sciences). He strongly supported Jean Bertrand’s candidacy, emphasizing the value of the results that expand on the highly sophisticated column generation problem resolution method. Jean Bertrand’s thesis brings a better understanding of the strengths of this approach, making it possible to exploit them more effectively and address the new challenges faced air, rail, urban and shipping carriers. In an unusual twist, the task of testing the method was assigned to a doctoral student at Polytechnique Montréal, whereas the opposite is usually the case, with doctoral research leading to several master’s projects.
Jean Bertrand is currently pursuing his PhD at HEC Montréal, while working with GERAD (Group for Research in Decision Analysis). During his master’s studies, he made the MSc Honour Roll. He has already presented the main findings of his thesis on two occasions, at the 2012 Optimization Days held at the School and the 2012 International Workshop on Column Generation held in Bromont. Professor Marco Lübbecke, of RWTH Aachen University, in Germany, also presented them in Europe, and Professor Desrosiers presented them at international lectures in Norway and Chile.
A rigorous selection process is followed for choosing the Award for the best master’s thesis. The professors responsible for each MSc option first choose the best thesis in their specialization, from those that earned an A+. Then the finalists must submit their theses to MSc program management, and the winner is selected by a jury. The Award goes to the graduating student with the most outstanding thesis in terms of its contribution to advancing knowledge and management practices.
Congratulations to Jean Bertrand! Kudos also to the other seven 2011-2012 finalists, out of the 275 new graduates, for their excellent work:
Marie-Christine Albert, Management option
Thesis title: Exploration des liens entre l'intelligence émotionnelle du gestionnaire, son style de leadership et la qualité de la relation qu'il entretient avec les membres de son équipe
Director: Estelle M. Morin
Lysiane Charest, Business Intelligence option
Thesis title: Approximation de statistiques de rang pour les grandes bases de données à l'aide de BIRCH
Director: Jean-François Plante
Marc Di Gaspero, Marketing option
Thesis title: Les déterminants de la performance des parieurs sportifs sur Internet
Director: Alain d'Astous
Amélie Favaro, Finance option
Thesis title: Évaluation d'un produit dérivé dont le sous-jacent est un indice de survie de la population canadienne
Co-Directors: Martin Boyer and Lars Stentoft
Virginie Hamel, Human Resources Management option
Thesis title: Les compétences des gestionnaires en médiation : construction et première validation d'une échelle de mesure
Director: Jean Poitras
Sébastien Lambert, Organizational Development option
Thesis title: Les pratiques de supervision et les comportements contre-productifs dans un contexte de travail en équipe
Director: Caroline Aubé
André Michelet, International Business option
Thesis title: Gestion collective de la biodiversité
Director: Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné
Claude Laurin and Jean Bertrand Gauthier.