Mahdi Mostajabdaveh

I am an Operations Research and AI scientist with over a decade of experience designing algorithms—metaheuristics, exact optimization, and machine learning methods—to solve large-scale, real-world business problems.

Currently, I am a Senior Staff Scientist at the Huawei Vancouver Research Center and the AI Lead for the Huawei Optimization Solver (OptVerse). I lead research on integrating machine learning and large language models into a commercial-grade solver, from algorithm design and benchmarking to usability and productization. Our work powers applications such as large-scale vehicle routing, logistics planning, and network design.

Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal and CIRRELT, supervised by Prof. Michel Gendreau and Prof. Teodor Crainic. I received my Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Management from Koç University.

My work spans both fundamental research and applied innovation, leading to patents, peer-reviewed publications (NeurIPS, ACL, AAAI, EJOR, C&OR), and deployed optimization solutions.

Research & Professional Interests

AI for Optimization & Solvers

Learning-augmented heuristics and branch-and-bound, LLM-based optimization modeling and agentic workflows, GPU-accelerated metaheuristics, and intelligent cut and search strategies to make solvers faster, more robust, and easier to use.

Applied Optimization in Industry

Using OR and ML to design scalable solutions for last-mile and middle-mile logistics, production scheduling, and power distribution, with a focus on models and algorithms that can be deployed in real systems.