Nicolas NISSE Inria Research Director (DR2) in the COATI team*, joint team of Inria Sophia Antipolis and Université Côte d'Azur, I3S (CNRS/UNS) . I received my Master and PhD degrees from the LRI, University of Paris 11, supervised by Pierre Fraigniaud. (2004-2007) I was a postdoc in Chile (Departamento de Ingenieria Matematica, Universidad de Chile, project Anillo en Redes) (2007-2008) and at Inria Sophia Antipolis, Inria project MASCOTTE (2008-2009) I was Inria Research Officer in the Inria project MASCOTTE (2009-2012) and then in the COATI team (2012-2023) Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches defended at Inria Sophia Antipolis, May 26th, 2014 Ph.D. Thesis defended at LRI, July the 2nd, 2007 short Curriculum Vitae (early 2024)

^*a coati is hidden in this page, can you find it?

---

Research         Popularization         News!!!         Publications         Students          

Committees and Conferences'Organization         Projects         Teaching         Contact

---

News

• LAGOS 2025, PC member, XIII Latin-American Algorithms, Graphs and Optimization Symposium, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 10-14th, 2025.
• AlgoTel 2025, PC member, 27es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, Saint Valery-sur-Somme, France, June 2-6th, 2025.

---

Research topics: Pursuit-evasion games, (distributed) Algorithms, Graph theory, Optimization, Communication/Social networks

My main concern is to design efficient algorithms for solving problems arising in telecommunication networks. Since most of these problems are NP-hard in general, I try to use structural properties of considered networks to derive polynomial-time exact or approximation algorithms in particular graph classes. One powerful tool I use to determine and to understand the algorithmic interest of graph structures is pursuit-evasion games. In these games, a team of searchers/pursuers/cops aims at capturing a fugitive/evader/robber moving in a graph.

Abstracts of some of my works and some presentations I gave can be found here

---

Ph.D. students

Current Henrique LOVISI ENNES, Quantum computing in topology, co-supervision with Clément MARIA (since Oct. 2023). Former Thomas DISSAUX, Graph decompositions: Treelength and pursuit-evasion games, defended on September 25th, 2023. Francesco d'AMORE, On the collective behaviors of bio-inspired distributed systems, defended on October 17th, 2022. Co-supervision ("HDR caution") with Emanuele Natale. Now postdoc at Aalto University, Finland. Foivos FIORAVANTES, Edge-labellings, vertex-colourings and combinatorial games on graphs, defended on September 26th, 2022. Co-supervision with Julien Bensmail. Now, postdoc at Czech Technical University in Prague. Ali AL ZOOBI, Practical computation of simple paths with length and diversity constraints in complex and multimodal networks (ANR MultiMod), defended on November 25th, 2021. Co-supervision with David Coudert. Now, engineer at DCbrain, Nice, France. Adrien GAUSSERAN, Optimization algorithms for Network Slicing for 5G, defended on November 9th, 2021. Co-supervision ("HDR caution") with Joanna Moulierac and Frédéric Giroire. Now, engineer in the "R&D" departement of the company Ekinops, Sophia Antipolis, France. Fionn Mc INERNEY, Domination and Identification Games in Graphs, defended on July 8th, 2019. Then, postdoc at LIRIS, Lyon, France (July-December, 2019) and at LIS, Marseille, France (January-December, 2020). Now, postdoc at CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany (since February 2021). Bi LI, Tree Decompositions and Routing Problems, defended on November 12th, 2014. Now, assistant Professor at department of Mathematics and Statistics in Xidian University, Xi'an, China. Ronan Pardo SOARES. Pursuit-evasion, decompositions and convexity on graphs, defended on November 8th, 2013. Now, assistant Professor at Universidade Federal do Ceara, Fortaleza, Brasil.

Foivos (on the left) and Thomas (right). Real Fionn (on the left) and Fionn during his PhD defense (right). Bi and Ronan (before and after their Ph.D., or the other way around...)

I also have (co-) supervised the undergraduate/master internship of the following students

---

Projects
in which I am currently involved

• Minimisation du délai moyen et pondéré en ordonnancement sous contraintes (CPFLOW). Project Académie 1 UCA, with I3S, Univ. Grenoble Alpes and Université Laval.
• Inria Associated team CANOE (head) Combinatorial Algorithms for Networking prOblEms (2023-25) with Univ. Federal do Ceara (UFC, Fortaleza, Brazil).
• CAPES-Cofecub project (french head) Graphs, Optimization, Combinatorics and Algorithms (2023-27) with Univ. Federal do Ceara (UFC, Fortaleza, Brazil) and Univ. of Avignon.
• ANR P-GASE (2022-2025), Positional Games: complexity, Algorithms and StrategiEs.
• ANR DIGRAPHS (2020-2023), Directed graphs.

past projects

• ANR "Médiation et communication scientifiques" ASMODEE (2022-2023), Analyse et conception de situations de médiation en informatique débranchée.
• ANR MultiMod (2018-2023), Scalable routing in Multi-Modal transportation networks
• SticAm-Sud GALOP (2019-2021) (head), between COATI, Univ. Federal do Ceara (UFC, Fortaleza, Brazil), and University Diego Portales (Santiago, Chile)
  Graphs ALgorithms for Optimization Problems
• Contrat de recherche (Nov. 2019-July 2020) (Référent for COATI team), between MillionRoads and EPIs COATI and ZENITH. Amélioration des structures de données et des algorithmes pour la navigation dans une base de données graphes
• PHC Xu Guangqi DESPROGES (2020-21) (head), between COATI and Xidian University (Xi'an, China), DEcompositionS arborescentes et PROblèmes de GraphES.
• SNIF (2018-21) (Scientific Networks and IDEX Funding), project Académie 1 UCA, with GREDEG and SKEMA
• Inria Associated Team AlDyNet (2013-15, extended until 2018) (head) between COATI and Adolfo Ibanez University (Santiago, Chile)
• COSIT (Convergent Optimized Service for Intermodal Transportation) (2018-19). Projet IDEX UCA^JEDI with UMR ESPACE, IMREDD et Instant-System.
• ANR STINT (2014-2017), on Forbiden Structures
• Action ECOS-SUD, Chile (2013-15) (head), between COATI and Adolfo Ibanez University (Santiago, Chile), Algorithmes distribués pour le calcul de la structure des réseaux
• FP7 EULER, Experimental UpdateLess Evolutive Routing
• ANR AGAPE (2009-2012), Algorithmes de Graphes a Parametre fixe et Exponentiels exacts
• ANR DIMAGREEN (2009-2012), DesIgn and MAnagement of GREEN networks with low power consumption
• Dynamic Compact Routing, Investigating routing schemes on large scale Networks
• European project AEOLUS (Algorithmic Principles for Building Efficient Overlay Computers)
• ANR ALPAGE (ALgorithmique des Plates-formes A Grande Echelle)
• ACI Sécurité FRAGILE
• ACI Masses de Données PairAPair
• COST Action 295 DYNAMO  (European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research)
• COST Action 293 GRAAL 

---

Committees and Conferences'Organization

I am member of the editorial board of Discrete Applied Maths. since June 2022.

• LAGOS 2025, PC member, XIII Latin-American Algorithms, Graphs and Optimization Symposium, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 10-14th, 2025.
• COCOON 2025, PC member, 31st International Computing and Combinatorics Conference, Chengdu, China, August 15-17th, 2025.
• AlgoTel 2025, PC member, 27es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, Saint Valery-sur-Somme, France, June 2-6th, 2025.
• GRASTA 2023, Organizing-Chair, 11th Workshop on GRAph Searching, Theory and Applications, Bertinoro, Italy, October 22-27th, 2023.
• LAGOS 2023, PC member, XII Latin-American Algorithms, Graphs and Optimization Symposium, Huatulco, Mexico, September 18-22th, 2023.
• AlgoTel 2023, PC member, 25es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, Cargèse, Corsica, France, May 22-27th, 2023.
• SEA 2022, PC member, 20th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms , Heidelberg University, Germany, July 25-27th, 2022.
• AlgoTel 2022, PC member, 24es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, vallée de Chevreuse, May 30th-June 3rd, 2022.
• GRASTA 2022, Organizing-Chair, 10th Workshop on GRAph Searching, Theory and Applications, Porquerolles, France, May 16-20th, 2022.
• AlgoTel 2021, PC member, 23es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, La Rochelle, May 31th-June 4th, 2021.
• AlgoTel 2020, PC member, 22es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, Lyon, France, Sept. 2020.
• CoRes 2020, PC member, 5es Rencontres Francophones sur les réseaux et protocoles de communication, Lyon, France, Sept. 2020.
• WG 2019, PC member, 45th International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science, Vall de Núria, Catalonia, Spain, 2019.
• LAGOS 2019, PC member, X Latin and American Algorithms, Graphs and Optimization Symposium, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2019.
• CIAC 2019, PC member, 11th International Conference on Algorithms and Complexity, Roma, Italy, 2019.
• GRASTA 2018, Scientific committee member, 9th Workshop on GRAph Searching, Theory and Applications, Berlin, Germany, September 24-27th, 2018.
• SEA 2018, PC member, 17th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms , L'Aquila, Italy, 2018.
• CoRes 2018, PC member, 3es Rencontres Francophones sur les réseaux et protocoles de communication, Roscoff, France, 2018.
• FCT 2017, PC member, 21st International Symposium on Fundamentals of Computation Theory, Bordeaux, France, September 11-13, 2017.
• CoRes 2016, PC member, 1res Rencontres Francophones sur les réseaux et protocoles de communication, 2016.
• AlgoTel 2016, PC member, 18es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, Bayonne, France, 24-27 May, 2016.
• GRASTA-MAC 2015, Organizing-Chair with Gena Hahn, joint Workshops 7th Workshop on GRAph Searching, Theory and Applications and 5th workshop on Moving And Computing, Montréal, Canada, October 19-23rd, 2015.
• Ad-Hoc Now 2015, PC member of track on Mobile Agents, International Conference on Ad Hoc Networks and Wireless (Ad-Hoc Now), Athens, Greece, June 29-July 1st 2015.
• LAGOS 2015, PC member, VIII Latin-American Algorithms, Graphs and Optimization Symposium (LAGOS), Praia das Fontes, Beberibe, Ceará, Brazil, 11-15 May, 2015.
• AlgoTel 2014, PC member, 16es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, Ile de Ré, France, 3-6 June, 2014.
• GRASTA 2014, Organizing-Chair, 6th Workshop on GRAph Searching, Theory and Applications, Cargèse, Corsica, France, March 31th-April 4th, 2014.
• OPODIS 2013, Conference-Chair, 17th International Conference On Principles Of DIstributed Systems, Nice, France, December 16-18th, 2013.
• AlgoTel 2013, co-Chair with Franck Rousseau, 15es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, Pornic, France, 28-31 May 2013.
• AlgoTel 2011, co-Organizing Chair with Fred, 13es Rencontres Francophones sur les Aspects Algorithmiques des Télécommunications, Agay, Cap-Esterel, France, 23-26 May 2011
• MajecSTIC'10, PC member, MAnifestation des JEunes Chercheurs en Sciences et Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication, Bordeaux, France, 2010
• TERA-NET'10, co-Organizing Chair, Toward Evolutive Routing Algorithms for scale-free/internet-like NETworks - Bordeaux, France, July 5th, 2010 - colocated with ICALP 2010
• JDIR'10, PC member, 11es Journées Doctorales en Informatique et Réseaux, Sophia-Antipolis, France, 24-26 March 2010
• IMAGINE, International workshop on Mobility, Agorithms, Graph theory In dynamic NEtworks.
  IMAGINE is a workshop devoted to young researches (Ph.D. students or people who have defended their thesis for no more than 2 years) relative to the area of dynamic wireless networks, evaluated by young researchers. While speakers and committee members are expected to be "young" researchers, everyone is of course welcome to attend the conference
  
  • Third edition (IMAGINE 2009) in conjunction with SIROCCO 2009 - Piran, Slovenia - May 28th, 2009
  • Second edition (IMAGINE 2008) in conjunction with ICALP 2008 - Reykjavik, Iceland - July 12th, 2008
  • First edition (IMAGINE 2007) in conjunction with DISC 2007 - Lemesos, Cyprus - 26 - 27 September 2007
  Co-founder and member of the "steering committee" with Nathalie Mitton and David Ilcinkas.
  

---

Teaching

Current

• since Feb. 2019 Graphs and Algorithms, Master 1 and 2 Informatique et Interactions, Univ. Nice Côte d'Azur
  
  • Lecture notes (M1 and M2)
  • TD1 M1 2025
  • Master 1 exams: homework M1 2018-19, exam M1 2018-19, homework M1 2019-20, homework2 M1 2019-20, mid exam M1 2020-21, final exam M1 2020-21, mid exam M1 2021-22.
  final exam M1 2021-22. first exam M1 2022-23. final exam M1 2022-23. Homework M1 2023-24. final exam M1 2023-24.
  • Master 2 exams: homework M2 2019-20, exam M2 2019-20, mid exam M2 2020-21, final exam M2 2020-21 first exam M2 2021-22 final exam M2 2021-22 first exam M2 2022-23 first exam M2 2024-25
  
  
• since Sept. 2009 Master 2 IFI, parcours UBINET (Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis)
  
  • Algorithms for telecommunications (basics on graphs, flows, gathering problem, compact routing)
  • Slides

Past

• 2019-2021 DIU "Enseigner l'informatique au lycée" (UCA)
  
  • block algorithmique, projects


• 2011-2021 Classe préparatoire MPSI (Lycée international de Valbonne)
  
  • Computer Sciences (in french) (basics of time-complexity, divide and conquer, sorting algorithms, dynamic programming)


• 2015-2018 Master 1 International, Univ. Nice Sophia Antipolis
  
  • Resolution Methods (basics on Graph and Algorithms), exam 2015-16, exam 2016-17, exam 2017-18
  
  
• 2008-2013 master 2 MDFI (Université de la Méditerranée)
  
  • Graph Theory (flows, matching, linear programming (course notes in french by F. Havet), graphs' decompositions)


• 2004-2007 at the engineering school Supélec
  
  • Computer Systems Architecture
  • Introduction to computer science: data structures and algorithms
  • Programming Models
    
  • Software Engineering and Deployment of Systems

---

Some Links

• Terra Numerica
• Science étonnante
• The Graph Searching community
• Some conferences
• GdR ASR (Réseaux et Systèmes Distribués)
• Phdcomics

---

Address:	Project team Coati INRIA Sophia Antipolis 2004, route des Lucioles - B.P. 93 F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex France
E-mail:	[first name] (dot) [last name] (at) inria (dot) fr
Phone:	+33 (0)4 97 15 53 28
Fax:	+33 (0)4 92 38 53 80
Office:	L0 11 (building Lagrange 1st floor)