Expertise
With more than 15 years experience building learning systems and predictive models for challenging problems in both industry and academia, Dr. Balakrishnan oversees all analytic initiatives at Interthinx. He has published more than 20 papers on neural computation, evolutionary algorithms, and neuro-cognitive modeling, and is the coauthor of an MIT Press book on evolutionary synthesis of intelligent agents. He is a strong proponent of the “toolkit” approach — leveraging multiple modeling and analysis methodologies to craft pragmatic solutions.

Experience
Dr. Balakrishnan has more than nine years of predictive modeling experience in property/casualty insurance, building and directing the development of solutions for marketing (customer segmentation, channel/producer segmentation, opportunity scoring), underwriting/pricing (personal auto, homeowners), and operations (claim fraud detection, subrogation identification, premium audit prediction). He has also managed data warehousing and direct mail/marketing functions at several companies. He began his career at Allstate Research and Planning Center and led analytics organizations at Obongo (a subsidiary of AOL) and Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company.

Education
Dr. Balakrishnan has a Ph.D. in machine learning from Iowa State University. He also holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Iowa State University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Anna University in Chennai, India.

Expertise
Dr. De Zilwa has more than a decade of analytic experience. He has created multiple patent-pending analytic inventions and written numerous technical papers and presentations.

Experience
Previously, Dr. De Zilwa was at Fair Isaac Research, where he led efforts to assess default risk of mortgage owners and home equity line of credit consolidators, as well as fraud risk associated with credit cards. Before that, he conducted research on low-emission combustion engines and hybrid rockets at the Sandia National Laboratories and NASA Ames Research Center, respectively.

Education
Dr. De Zilwa received his Bachelor’s Degree and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, University of London.

Expertise
Ms. Jones leads a team of data specialists who support the diverse requirements of the Analytics unit. She has more than 26 years of data analysis and systems experience in the insurance industry.

Experience
Previously, Ms. Jones was with Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, where she was responsible for providing analytic data and text-mining results for a research and modeling unit. Her career experience evolved from developing MVS COBOL operational and financial applications to a focus on data sourcing, transformation, and management for predictive analytics and data- and text-mining initiatives using SAS and SQL.

Education
Ms. Jones received her Associate of Arts Degree in Liberal Studies at College of Marin, Kentfield, California.

Expertise
Mr. Ilderton has more than 13 years of experience in programming with SAS to create data sets for modeling purposes and 10 years of experience in processing credit bureau data from the three major U.S. bureaus.

Experience
Previously, Mr. Ilderton worked as a programmer/analyst for 13 years at Fair Isaac Corporation, where he worked in the insurance department and on many projects for clients in the banking and retail industries.

Education
Mr. Ilderton received his Bachelor’s Degree in Geophysics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his Master’s Degree in Engineering Geoscience from the University of California, Berkeley.

Expertise
Ms. Johnson has more than ten years of experience designing and implementing analytic solutions for business problems.

Experience
Previously, she spent several years as a statistician at a top national insurance carrier. Before that, she worked for a marketing firm that provided analytic consultative services for Fortune 1000 organizations in many verticals, including telecom, retail apparel, leisure hospitality, consumer packaged goods, and energy.

Education
Ms. Johnson holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Wright State University and a Master’s Degree in Applied Economics from the University of Cincinnati.

Expertise
Dr. Ianakiev has more than ten years of experience in predictive analytics, data mining, and financial and insurance analytics operations.

Experience
Previously, Dr. Ianakiev spent nine years at Fair Isaac Corporation, where he managed a variety of predictive analytics and data mining solutions in the financial and insurance areas. Before that, he worked at the Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR) in the areas of pattern recognition, machine learning, predictive analytics, data mining, and information retrieval.

Education
Dr. Ianakiev holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York.

Expertise
Dr. Sha has five years of experience in the insurance industry, with a focus on the application of predictive modeling techniques to insurance loss management.

Experience
Previously, Dr. Sha worked for two years at Risk Management Solutions. Her responsibilities included building financial models to predict catastrophic losses along with training clients in the use of the models. She also spent three years at Allstate Insurance Company, first at Northbrook, and then at Allstate Research and Planning Center in California, where she conducted research on predictive models for pricing strategy and financial models for calculating return on equity.

Education
Dr. Sha earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Kansas.