Elnaz Kanani Kuchesfehani wins the best PhD dissertation award
April 26, 2016
The award for the best PhD dissertation in 2015 went to Elnaz Kanani Kuchesfehani (PhD 2015, Management Sciences), for her dissertation entitled Essays on Dynamic Games Played over Event Trees.
Her dissertation, supervised by Professor Georges Zaccour (Decision Sciences), holder of the Chair in Game Theory and Management, was praised for its quality, contributions and spinoff and for its publication potential.
She considered two theoretical models in the context of dynamic and stochastic games, and applied them in two fields: environmental management and supply chain management. More specifically, she showed how a taxation system can lead firms to take environmental costs into account, by developing a model to characterize non-cooperative equilibria, in a context in which firms must work under a global cap imposed by a regulator.
She also developed a second model to illustrate how incentive strategies can ensure that partners abide by an agreement over the long term, showing how incentive strategies can allow a manufacturer to involve its retailer in collecting used products for re-use.
What makes this dissertation exceptional?
The dissertation makes a fundamental contribution to the field of dynamic and stochastic game theory, by proposing two models that can be used to determine non-cooperative and incentive equilibria, a first in this field of study. Its importance has in fact already been acknowledged by researchers in this field: the first paper was published in the Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications and the second in the prestigious Automatica journal (ranked A under the HEC Montréal incentive policy). The external examiner also emphasized the excellent publication potential of these essays in high-calibre scientific journals.
In addition to developing these two models and illustrating them with concrete applications, the dissertation suggests algorithms for determining the equilibria (non-cooperative and incentive) for a wide range of dynamic and stochastic games, making it even more original and relevant. The models may be useful for both game theorists and researchers in many fields who study these questions.
About the winner
Elnaz Kanani Kuchesfehani holds a Master of Science in Socio-Economic System Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics from the Sharif University of Technology (Iran). She is currently working as a Technology Consultant, Information Management & Analytics Technology for Deloitte Canada. Note that she also won the 2015 Esdras Minville (student) award for one of the essays in her dissertation.
Congratulations to Elnaz Kanani Kuchesfehani, who received a $3,000 prize from the Fondation universitaire Mercure, and to the finalists for the award for the best PhD dissertation in 2015:
| Finalist | Supervisor | Dissertation title |
| Mariline Comeau-Vallée | Ann Langley | La collaboration interpersonnelle : espace de négociation identitaire |
| Pascale Landry | Johanne Turbide | Essais sur les successions aux postes de direction artistique dans les organisations culturelles au Québec |
| Mohammad Moeini Aghkariz | Suzanne Rivard | A Behavioral Perspective on IT Project Risk Management: A Three-essay Thesis |
| Mina Rohani | Yany Grégoire | When Questions Change Customer's Revenge Reponses: Studying the Effects of Form and Content of Questionnaires over Time |
| Mathieu Templier | Guy Paré | Synthetizing Prior Information Systems Research: Three Essays on the Methods and Applications of Literature Reviews |
| Xiao Zhou Zhou | Georges Dionne | High-Frequency Liquidity, Risk Management and Trading Strategy |
Elnaz Kanani Kuchesfehani
Photo: Deloitte Canada