John Elder

Founder, Elder Research, Inc.

Dr. John Elder founded and heads the US’s most experienced data science consulting team, with offices in Charlottesville, Virginia, Washington DC, Baltimore MD, and Raleigh, NC. (www.elderresearch.com). Founded in 1995, Elder Research, Inc. focuses on investment, commercial and security applications of advanced analytics, including text mining, image recognition, process optimization, cross-selling, biometrics, drug efficacy, credit scoring, sector timing, and fraud detection.

John obtained a BS and MEE in Electrical Engineering from Rice University, and a PhD in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia, where he’s an occasional adjunct professor teaching Optimization or Data Mining. Prior to 20 years at ERI, he spent 5 years in aerospace defense consulting, 4 heading research at an investment management firm, and 2 in Rice’s Computational & Applied Mathematics department.

Dr. Elder has authored innovative data mining tools, is a frequent keynote speaker, and has chaired international Analytics conferences. John’s workshops on analysis techniques are noted for their clarity and effectiveness. Dr. Elder was honored to serve for 5 years on a panel appointed by President Bush to guide technology for National Security. His book on Data Mining for practitioners (http://tinyurl.com/bookERI), with Bob Nisbet and Gary Miner, won the PROSE Award for top book in Mathematics for 2009. His book with Giovanni Seni on Ensemble modeling (http://tinyurl.com/book2ERI) was published in Feb. 2010, and a book on Practical Text Mining (http://amzn.to/textmine) won the PROSE Award for top book in Informational and Computational Sciences in 2012.

Specialties: Investment modeling, fraud detection, text mining, customer relationship management, credit scoring, optimization, ensemble modeling, data science training