Senior Leadership

Listed Alphabetically, After CEO

John F. Elder IV, Ph.D.

Dr. John Elder heads a data mining consulting team with offices in Charlottesville Virginia, and Washington DC (www.datamininglab.com). Founded in 1995, Elder Research, Inc. focuses on investment, commercial and security applications of advanced analytics, including text mining, stock selection, image recognition, process optimization, cross-selling, biometrics, drug efficacy, credit scoring, market 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 adjunct professor teaching Optimization or Data Mining. Prior to 15 years at ERI, he spent 5 years in aerospace defense consulting, 4 heading research at an investment management firm, and 2 in Rice University's Computational & Applied Mathematics department.

Dr. Elder has authored innovative data mining tools, is a frequent keynote speaker, and was co-chair of the 2009 Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining conference, in Paris. 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 the President to guide technology for National Security. His book with Bob Nisbet and Gary Miner, Handbook of Statistical Analysis & Data Mining Applications, won the PROSE award for Mathematics in 2009. His book with Giovanni Seni, Ensemble Methods in Data Mining: Improving Accuracy through Combining Predictions, was published in February 2010.

John is a follower of Christ and the proud father of 5.

Jeff Deal

Vice President of Operations Jeff Deal leads tasks involving logistics, financial analysis, planning, and regulatory/legal issues. Mr. Deal has more than 20 years experience in business operations, planning, and government relations, primarily in the health care industry. Prior to ERI, Jeff was the President of a successful health planning consulting business that assisted hospitals and physicians with operational analysis, forecasting, and navigating through complex regulatory processes. He has a Master’s degree in health administration from Virginia Commonwealth University and an undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary.

J. Dustin Hux

Vice President of Analytics Dustin Hux has 15 years of applied statistical modeling and data mining experience. He has led teams solving problems in the commercial, financial, and scientific domains including fraud detection, cross-selling, customer profiling, product bundling, direct marketing, biometric identification, stock selection, market timing, text mining, and atmospheric modeling. Dustin is particularly honored to be a part of projects that apply data mining and advanced analytics to challenges facing the intelligence community. Mr. Hux is expert with leading data mining software tools and advises vendors on enhancements. For KDD, he was on the 2004 Data Mining Standards, Services, and Platforms Program Committee and was 2006 Sponsorship Committee Co-chair. Dustin earned a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia and Bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Economics from Emory and Henry College.

Directors

Listed Alphabetically

Andrew Fast, Ph.D.

Dr. Andrew Fast leads research in Text Mining and Social Network Analysis at Elder Research. Dr. Fast graduated Magna Cum Laude from Bethel University and earned Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. There, his research focused on causal data mining and mining complex relational data such as social networks. At ERI, Andrew leads the development of new tools and algorithms for data and text mining for applications of capabilities assessment, fraud detection, and national security.

Dr. Fast has published on an array of applications including detecting securities fraud using the social network among brokers, and understanding the structure of criminal and violent groups. Other publications cover modeling peer-to-peer music file sharing networks, understanding how collective classification works, and predicting playoff success of NFL head coaches (work featured on ESPN.com). With John Elder and other co-authors, Andrew has written a book on Practical Text Mining, to be published in January, 2012.

Simeon H.K. Fitch

Director of Software Engineering Simeon Fitch has a passion for transforming emerging innovative technology into useful software tools that solve meaningful problems. His technical interests are at the intersection of engineering research and robust software engineering practices. By introducing, applying and deploying software engineering methodologies and tools into the research environment, he has helped clients realize the full potential of their inventions and discoveries faster and with wider impact. His collaborations with scientists, engineers, and academics have resulted in the successful deployment of a host of engineering tools into industry.

Mr. Fitch’s strengths span the software lifecycle. From object-oriented design, implementation, deployment, and maintenance, he’s regularly produced successful applications with significant technological impact. His technical specialties include software system architecture, API design and development, computational geometry, 2-D and 3-D visualization, cross-platform and cross-language application development and deployment, and continuous integration across platforms.

Mr. Fitch and his software engineering team became a part of ERI through the 2011 acquisition of Mustard Seed Software, LLC, the company he founded 10 years prior to "do work that matters" via service to others in the scientific, engineering and academic commmunities. ERI's acquisition of Mustard Seed Software, LLC was the natural step in better meeting the needs of a diverse and expanding client base, and complements ERI's expertise in data mining with experience in "innovation mining".

Mr. Fitch graduated from the University of Virginia with a BS in Computer Science (highest distinction, Tau Beta Pi, Louis T. Rader Research Award). He is a co-recipient of two R&D 100 awards, and co-author on dozens of conference and journal papers relating to software for assessing engineering reliability.

Stein Kretsinger

Director of Project Development Stein Kretsinger has over 15 years of experience successfully growing online marketing and consumer credit businesses. He was the CEO of The Loan Page, an internet-based mortgage marketing company. Prior to that, Stein was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Battery Venture, where he developed the investment thesis around price value and growth of online mortgage marketing. Mr. Kretsinger was a founding executive for advertising.com, one of the largest online media networks, where he developed and implemented industry-leading optimization technology based on math programming. Prior to his work at Advertising.com, Mr. Kretsinger was a business manager at Capital One, where he used credit scoring to book over two million accounts presently valued at $160 million. Stein holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia.

Antonia de Medinaceli

Director of Fraud Analytics Antonia de Medinaceli has been the technical lead on dozens of data mining projects, building predictive models for ERI clients in the financial, pharmaceutical, retail, insurance, and other industries. She is expert in fraud detection and prevention, and has led several successful projects enabling large organizations to detect and act on anomalous behavior.

Antonia has extensive experience teaching SPSS and SAS software to several audiences, and has also lectured on the latest analytic concepts and techniques, co-teaching Elder Research’s annual data mining course. She is a frequent presenter at conferences, and was the keynote speaker at a SAS conference in 2009.

In the business development arena, Antonia has been very successful -- with both government and commercial clients -- at converting their interest in analytics into multi-stage, quantifiable projects with tangible deliverables. Ms. de Medinaceli is fluent in French, and has a working knowledge of Spanish.

Gerhard Pilcher

Gerhard enjoys data mining, especially related to the areas of Fraud Detection and Risk Management using various analytical methods, working with people, leading change, and timely management of complex projects. His work experience spans both private and government sectors including international experience.

Gerhard has extensive experience in the construction and telecommunication industries both as a business owner and executive. He is a recognized expert in three dimensional roadway modeling and automated machine guidance using Global Positioning Satellite systems and has presented to various agencies including the Transportation Research Board. In his role as Chief Technology Officer and VP of Engineering for Pulse Communications, Gerhard directed the design of early digital subscriber line systems (internet over the telephone line) and was a member of the international forum defining the standards for DSL implementation. Prior to Pulse Communications he was Director of Operations for Bell Northern Research leading the design and delivery of hardware and software for large scale telephony switching and fiber optic systems.

Gerhard has served on various boards including the Strategic Advisory Board for the NCSU Computer Science Department. He has a Master of Science in Analytics (Institute for Advanced Analytics, NCSU) and Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from North Carolina State University.

Mike Reddington

Director of Financial Research Michael Reddington has 24 years of experience building and executing sophisticated proprietary investment systems for hedge funds, and has worked closely with ERI’s founder, John Elder, for the last 15 years. Their primary fielded system generated annualized returns of 18.3% without leverage (vs. the S&P-500’s 6.3%) over its 8-year run, while experiencing only 3/5ths the volatility of the index. When ERI’s proprietary technology showed the strategy’s edge was fading, the client and ERI brought the fund to a soft landing, and shut it down while the system was still beating the market, retaining strong credibility with its investors.

Mike is expert in the use of proprietary and commercial research software, and is responsible for the vital functions of trading, compliance, client relations, and reporting. Mr. Reddington heads ERI’s New York office. He earned a BS in Finance from NYU, and an MBA in Finance from CW Post – Long Island U, and in his spare time enjoys coaching Lacrosse.

Technical Staff

Listed Alphabetically

John E. Ainsworth

Senior Data Miner John E. Ainsworth earned a BS in Computer Science from Wake Forest University, and is an expert object-oriented programmer.  A decorated war veteran, Captain Ainsworth spent 5 years in the U.S. Army, where he gained practical experience in applied problem solving.  John has designed and implemented cutting edge research tools in multiple languages and has co-written a paper on a novel non-linear optimization technique for the Bounded Knapsack problem.

Ben Bullard

Analyst Ben Bullard graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, where he performed research in the Materials Science metallurgical laboratory. At ERI, Ben has contributed to projects in investment modeling, text mining for national defense, and customer relationship management for the pharmaceutical industry.

Kenneth J. Darrell

Analyst Kenneth J. Darrell has been a Control Systems Engineer for the Air Force Research Laboratory and CDI Corp.   Mr. Darrell earned a BS in Aerospace Engineering  and a MS in Quantitative Analysis from the University of Cincinnati, where his research focused on combining data mining algorithms to increase performance.

John Dimeo

Software Engineer John Dimeo interned at Elder Research for two summers before joining ERI full time in 2007. John earned a BS in Computer Science from the University of Virginia, and has interests in graphics, interfaces, usability, and object-oriented design. Under the advisement of CEO John Elder, John wrote a software tool that manipulates two-dimensional tables to make them easier to read and enhance their aesthetics for his senior thesis. His current work at ERI includes applying data and text mining to the fields of intelligence, IT, financial forecasting, and diabetes research.

Stephen D. Gawtry

Senior Scientist Steve Gawtry brings extensive experience developing solutions across a broad range of applications in the commercial, governmental, policy, and scientific domains. Past projects include the application of data mining techniques and methodology to such projects as: predictive analysis and discovery for multiple federal agencies; government and commercial fraud detection; voter prediction; consumer price modeling; customer churn; text mining; investment modeling; CRM analytics; credit scoring; energy demand and price forecasting; crop yield forecasting; atmospheric modeling; and climate forecasting and trends analysis. He has previously taught and researched in climatology at the University of Virginia, and holds an MS in Science and Technology Policy from the University of Minnesota and a BA in Math and Physics from St. Olaf College.

Isaiah Goodall

Isaiah Goodall is the Director of the Elder Research Washington, DC office. As part of leading the DC office, Isaiah heads business development in the DC area with Federal and commercial clients. Isaiah manages client relationships at the USPS Office of Inspector General, IRS, and General Dynamics where Elder Research provides fraud detection, case allocation, and Human Resources analytics. Mr. Goodall also managed a large and very successful warranty fraud detection effort for a world-class consumer electronics firm. Isaiah has spoken about fraud detection and data mining at conferences including Predictive Analytics World and the Association of Government Accountants.

Prior to Elder Research, Isaiah co-founded RelayFoods.com, a novel, growing e-commerce company in Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia. Isaiah graduated from Virginia Tech summa cum laude with a B.S. in Business Management. Isaiah and his wife Betsy are members of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC.

Benjamin Gusemen

Software Engineer Ben Guseman is adept at helping clients understand and realize their vision for software tools, especially through requirements analysis, the design and implementation of graphical user interfaces, the creation of automated software deployment tools, and the use of continuous integration techniques with automated testing. Most often, Ben focuses on the development of an aircraft rotor modeling and risk assessment application used by aerospace engineers. Recent work includes visualization and manipulation of attribute data assigned to finite element models, modernization of legacy user interfaces and build systems, and the implementation of a flexible, XML schema-based data model API. Mr. Guseman joined the ERI team via the 2011 acquisition of Mustard Seed Software, LLC.

Ben earned a BS in Computer Science (2009) and a BA in English (2002), both from the University of Virginia. Ben and his wife Christina (sister of John Dimeo) have three children.

Meredith Heard

Analyst Meredith Heard detects fraud, waste and abuse for her clients.  She has experience in data mining/analysis, marketing research, marketing, public relations, and communications.  Prior to joining Elder Research, Meredith conducted marketing research for National Public Radio (NPR) corporate sponsorship and development.  She has also worked for a public relations firm and multiple non-profit organizations.

Meredith earned her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a focus in Marketing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Business Administration part-time at George Washington University.

Thomas Heiman

Dr. Thomas Heiman brings extensive experience developing solutions across a broad range of applications in the commercial, governmental, policy, and scientific domains. Past projects include the application of data mining techniques and methodology to projects such as: predictive analysis and fraud discovery for several federal agencies; genomics/computational biology; health care, epidemiology; and text mining. Prior to joining ERI, Tom worked at the MITRE Corporation, SRA, and Celera Genomics. Previously to that, Tom worked for 10 years as an exploration geologist/environmental scientist.

Tom has a PhD in computational science and informatics with a focus in computational biology/bioinformatics, a MS in computational science from George Mason University, and a BA in Geology with a focus in geochemistry from the University of Arizona. Tom and his wife, Patricia, have three children and three dogs.

Ben Hocking

Software Engineer Ben Hocking has been a key contributor to application development involving aircraft rotor modeling, risk assessment, fatigue crack growth, ultrasound inspection simulations, and wave propagation simulation. His strengths include algorithm analysis and development, computational geometry, artificial intelligence, and object-oriented source code refactoring. His areas of interest include integrating existing computational models into graphical user interfaces, astrophysical simulations of alternative space-time metrics, and neurophysiological modeling of the hippocampus and its function within the medial temporal lobe (part his PhD research at UVA). Mr. Hocking joined the ERI team via the 2011 acquisition of Mustard Seed Software, LLC.

Mr. Hocking graduated from Georgia Tech in 1990 with a BS in Physics, after which he taught high school physics for two years before starting his career in software engineering. While working as a software engineer, he returned to Georgia State, earning an MS in Physics/Astronomy in 1999, followed by a Masters of Computer Science at the University of Virginia in 2003. He is currently working on his dissertation for a Ph.D. in Computer Science researching the use of genetic algorithms to explore parameter spaces with high dimensionality.

Carl D. Hoover, Ph.D.

Senior Research Scientist Dr. Carl Hoover is a key member of ERI's analytics team in our Baltimore-Washington office.  Dr. Hoover primarily focuses on developing sophisticated, data-driven personnel security and risk control systems.  Other areas of interest are time-series data mining, event-based risk assessment, risk aggregation techniques, and the merging of controls engineering with data mining.  Dr. Hoover rejoined Elder Research after graduating from Clarkson University with Doctor of Philosophy and Masters of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering.  His doctoral research on control algorithms for a bionic above-knee prosthetic limb is the subject of several peer-reviewed publications and on-going research in the rehabilitation robotics field. 

Prior to graduate study, Carl received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia, worked in the avionics industry as a Test Engineer, and served with Elder Research as a Research Scientist.  Carl's diverse expertise in data mining and engineering enables him to develop solutions that help clients make real-time decisions in a complex information environment.  Carl’s data mining background includes experience in insider threat, fraud, marketing, pharmaceutical, and financial applications.  His engineering background includes experience in dynamic systems, control systems, mechatronics, machine design, musculoskeletal modeling, biomechanical testing, aero-elasticity, avionics production, and process control.  Dr. Hoover is a Member of ASME.

Jennifer Markee

Software Engineer Jennifer Markee graduated Magna Cum Laude from The University of Pittsburgh with a dual degree in Mathematics and Computer Science.  Her career includes more than a decade of experience with multiple object oriented, SQL, and XML technologies in network and environmental systems.  Jennifer joined the ERI Charlottesville office in 2011 to work on fraud detection and data visualization applications. .

William Proffitt

Analyst William Proffitt graduated with distinction from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Mathematics. At ERI, he has worked on modeling churn in the telecommunications industry, optimizing investments for charitable giving, and designing a ranking system for pairwise competitions. William enjoys stimulating conversation and leading a group in Young Life .

Mike Thurber

Senior Data Miner Mike Thurber is an analysis professional who listens carefully to his clients' business objectives and challenges and has a passion for extracting relevant and valuable insights from available data. Examples of Mike’s successes include gleaning insights on how complex consumer choices impact sales, predicting profitability of prospective customers, showing how call center interactions affect customer retention, and forecasting recovery of losses due to default. Mike earned a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and a Master’s degree in Statistics from Virginia Commonwealth University. Prior to joining ERI he developed engineering modeling software, consulted on Business Intelligence applications, advised on many data warehousing projects, and served in several analytic roles in manufacturing and finance. He is an expert data analyst, comfortable with diverse data sources in diverse industries.

Jeffrey Whittemore

Engineer / Analyst Jeffrey Whittemore joined Elder Research full time in 2007.  Jeff has worked on projects involving fraud detection, text mining, credit scoring, medical diagnostics, collaborative filtering, crime analysis, and risk scoring.  He previously worked as a research assistant in the Computational Systems Biology Laboratory at the University of Virginia. Jeff earned a B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia.  His thesis project, "Reconstruction and Analysis of the Leishmania major Metabolic Network", involved modeling the metabolism of a disease-causing parasite.

Sarah Will

Analyst Sarah Will graduated cum laude from The College of William & Mary in 2010 with a B.S. in Mathematics and a minor in Linguistics. She joined ERI in 2011 in the Washington, D.C. office, where she does work involving text analysis, fraud detection, and data visualization. She previously worked as a Mathematical Statistician for the U.S. Census Bureau.

Support Staff

Listed Alphabetically, after Office Manager

Meredith Noble

Office Manager Meredith Noble is a graduate of Dartmouth College where she received the Bachelor of Arts degree.  Since then, Meredith has administrated the financial and human resources infrastructure for a number of local firms.  Meredith joined ERI in 1998 as the office manager.  In that capacity, Meredith oversees and administrates ERI's financial accounts and investments, personnel resources and benefits, and general company logistics.  Previously, Meredith managed the offices for two architecture firms in the Charlottesville area and oversaw customer service for a software firm.

Meredith has traveled extensively for international missions and is a proud mother of three.

Debbie Owen

Adam Sylvester

Partners

Listed Alphabetically

Dean W. Abbott

Consultant Dean W. Abbott of Abbott Analytics has over a decade of experience as a Data Mining researcher and is often asked to advise DM software tool vendors on the effectiveness of their products. Earlier, as a researcher with three engineering firms, Mr. Abbott employed modern statistical and network techniques extensively in the solution of challenging problems in a wide range of areas, including cancer cell detection, underwater signal classification, character recognition, image processing, aircraft control, and missile guidance. Mr. Abbott is author or co-author of more than two dozen conference papers and technical reports on a wide variety of Data Mining techniques and applications.

Zach Buckner

Zach Buckner is an engineer and entrepreneur in Charlottesville, VA with an array of interests in freight, operations research, machine learning, text analytics, simulation, optimization, and computer architecture. Buckner has founded three venture-backed startups, including Relay and Fanaticall, in addition to inventing a next-generation industrial sensor line at Visi-Trak Sensors, LLC. 

Mr. Buckner earned BS and Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia, where he won research awards for his work in Biomimicry and advanced digital design. Prior to serving as Vice President of Technology for Elder Research (where he was until 2012), Buckner was a Senior Embedded Software Engineer for GE Fanuc and co-founded a successful software company called Portris. Zach has designed award-winning hardware and software products for the Virginia Transportation Research Council and Trimation -- one being named one of the "40 Best Products of 2000" by Control Engineering magazine. Mr. Buckner is also named as an inventor on an array of pending and awarded US and international patents, including two that are currently being licensed through the University of Virginia's Patent Foundation.  Zach was an invited speaker on text mining at SAS's M2008 Data Mining Conference.

Eric V. Siegel, Ph.D.

Eric V. Siegel, Ph.D., is a widely credited expert in data mining and analytics, and an award-winning teacher of graduate-level courses in those areas. Eric served as a computer science professor at Columbia University, where he forwarded data mining technology in the realms of machine learning performance optimization, text mining, and data visualization. Eric also co-founded two New York City-based software companies for customer/user profiling and data mining, as well as west-coast-based Prediction Impact , providing predictive analytics services. With data mining, Eric has solved problems in computer security, fraud detection, computational linguistics and information retrieval.