John Elder IV

Dr. John Elder heads the US's most experienced data mining 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 Federal, commercial, investment, and security applications of advanced analytics, including text mining, stock selection, image recognition, biometrics, process optimization, cross-selling, drug efficacy, credit scoring, risk management, 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 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 been named one of the "10 most influential people in Analytics". He's authored innovative data mining tools, is a frequent keynote speaker, and has chaired international Analytics conferences. John's courses on analysis techniques -- taught at dozens of universities, companies, and government labs -- 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 practical Data Mining, with Bob Nisbet and Gary Miner, won the PROSE award for top book in 2009 in Mathematics. He was one of the discoverers of the powers of ensemble modeling, and co-authored a book on it with Giovanni Seni in February 2010. His book on Practical Text Mining, with colleague Andrew Fast and 4 others, won the PROSE award for top book in 2012 in Computation and Information Science.

John is grateful to be a follower of Christ and the father of 5.