Bilevel optimization
Leader–follower problems in which a pricing decision anticipates the optimal reaction of consumers; models, reformulations and algorithms.
Abdellah Bulaich Mehamdi
Ph.D. candidate in applied mathematics · École Polytechnique & EDF Lab Paris-Saclay
I am a Ph.D. candidate at École Polytechnique, working on bilevel optimization and principal–agent models, with applications to the design of electricity pricing schemes for the residential market.
My thesis, “Bilevel Optimization and Principal–Agent Approach for Designing Incentive Models Applied to Electricity Pricing”, is supervised by Stéphane Gaubert (Inria & CMAP, École Polytechnique) and Luce Brotcorne (Inria), in collaboration with EDF, where I am advised by Wim van Ackooij and Quentin Jacquet.
News
- New preprint: Joint Design of Time-of-Use Schedules and Price Levels, on arXiv.
- Contributed talk at ICBO 2026, the International Conference on Bilevel Optimization, Pittsburgh.
- Talk at ROADEF 2026, Tours.
- Paper presented at IEEE CDC 2025.
- Paper Pricing filtering in Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition published in Operations Research Letters.
- Started my Ph.D. at École Polytechnique and EDF Lab Paris-Saclay.
Research Interests
Principal–agent models
Incentive design under information asymmetry, value-function approximation, and links with optimal quantization of measures.
Electricity pricing
Design of time-of-use tariffs and price levels for the residential market, accounting for client participation and load flexibility.
Decomposition methods
Column generation and Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition for large-scale mixed-integer programs.
Publications
Preprints
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Joint Design of Time-of-Use Schedules and Price Levels: a Bilevel Model with Client Participation and Load Flexibility
arXiv preprint arXiv:2609.15496, 2026
Journal & conference papers
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Duality between polyhedral approximation of value functions and optimal quantization of measures
2025 IEEE 64th Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), Dec. 2025, pp. 2842–2849
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Pricing filtering in Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition
Operations Research Letters, vol. 58 (2025), p. 107207
Talks
International conferences
- ICBO, International Conference on Bilevel Optimization. Contributed talk.
- VC, 16th Viennese Conference on Optimal Control and Dynamic Games. Talk in an invited session.
- EUROPT, 22nd Conference on Advances in Continuous Optimization. Talk in an invited session.
National conferences
- ROADEF 2026, 27th congress of the French OR Society. Contributed talk.
- ROADEF 2025, 26th congress of the French OR Society. Contributed talk.
- PGMODAYS 2024, Programme Gaspard Monge pour l’Optimisation. Contributed talk.
- ROADEF 2024, 25th congress of the French OR Society. Talk in an invited session.
Curriculum Vitae
Experience
- Ph.D. candidate, research associate, EDF Lab Paris-Saclay.
- Research intern in optimization, EDF Lab Paris-Saclay.
- Research intern in operations research, Huawei Paris Research Center.
- Data science intern, SNCF Réseau.
Education
- Ph.D. in applied mathematics, École Polytechnique.
- M.Sc. in optimization (M2), Institut Polytechnique de Paris.
- Engineering degree (Ingénieur polytechnicien), École Polytechnique.
- Classes préparatoires (MPSI, MP*), Lycée Moulay Al Hassan (Tangier) & Lycée Moulay Youssef (Rabat), Morocco.
Skills
- Python, AMPL, LaTeX
- Arabic (native), French (fluent), English (fluent)
Contact
Email: abdellah.bulaich-mehamdi@polytechnique.edu
Address: EDF Lab Paris-Saclay, 7 Boulevard Gaspard Monge, 91120 Palaiseau, France