Dr Andy Pryke - Data Mining Ph.D. and Consultant

Andy Pryke is an expert in data mining, data visualisation and applied statistics, with more than 12 years’ experience. He has delivered projects in commercial and academic environments, and is a founding director of The Data Mine Ltd. Andy provides insight into information, ensuring that his clients have a clear understanding of the results, enabling them to take action on the knowledge that they gain. He is a quick learner and enjoys working with clients as well as computers!

Email: CV@The-Data-Mine.co.uk

Technical Proficiencies

In depth knowledge of data mining, descriptive and inferential statistics and data visualisation methods. Database technologies including Oracle, PostgreSQL, Informix, Sybase, SQL generally and optimisation of database queries. Experience of many programming languages including: Java, R, Prolog, C++, PHP, some Perl, Shell Script, and various proprietary languages .

Written and taught courses in many subjects including: Data mining, R and statistics for commercial and academic audiences; Java and C++ courses for students at college, B.Sc. and M.Sc levels; and a “Computing for the Terrified” course for students in their 70’s.

Recent Employment

Founding Director: The Data Mine Ltd, Data Mining Consultancy

March 2007 to present

Providing consultancy and training in data mining, data analysis and data visualisation. Helping companies create value by making sense of information they collect as part of their everyday business. Projects include: the development of bespoke data mining-based reporting systems; analysis of customer purchase data to predict customer value and repeat purchasing; analysis of surveys; data extraction, transformation and loading; evaluation of current organisational practices and recommendation for improvements; in-depth recommendations for implementation and improvement of data visualisation.

Data Mining Consultant: Cercia, a Commercial Consultancy Group at The University of Birmingham.

December 2003 to March 2007

Successfully completed a large number of consultancy projects that applied artificial intelligence techniques to solve business problems. Applied data mining techniques to areas as diverse as the identification of cancer causing genes, prediction of customer behaviour and automatic report generation. Developed new techniques for data analysis and data visualisation. Contacted potential new clients, built relationships and secured business.

Freelance Consultancy

March 2001 to December 2003

Extended and enhanced web-based library systems with hundreds of thousands of users. Provided training and mentoring in good development practice. Rolled out content management systems to improve communications within teams. Created code generation systems to reduce development times and increase reliability.

Chief Technical Officer, tw2

October 2000 to March 2001

Head of technology for eCommerce development house employing more than 100 people. Redesigned product development cycle, increasing productivity and decreasing costs. Overall design of system architecture. Monitored new technologies to identify opportunities and threats.

Senior Developer, aQtive

May 1999 to Sept. 2000

Led development team for interactive, multi-user web-based system. Design and development of desktop agent distributed to hundreds of thousands of users. Developed new product ideas.

Research Associate, School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham

Jan. 1998 to May 1999

Contracted by a large telecoms company to develop and evaluate techniques for mining telephone call databases. Developed new technology. Presented results to company staff; generated project reports; documented software and techniques.

Academic Achievements

Ph.D. Computer Science, The University of Birmingham (1993 - 1998)

Thesis Title: Data Mining using Symbolic Genetic Algorithms and Interactive Visualisation

Integration of visualisation and data mining techniques. Development of novel methods in data mining and visualisation. Researched and synthesised information on a wide range of data mining, machine learning and visualisation techniques. Wrote large object-oriented systems allowing complex behaviour whilst keeping code extensible.

Sponsorship was provided by ISL the developers of Clementine (now known as “IBM SPSS Modeler Professional”), and work included integrating new genetic algorithm based techniques into Clementine.

M.Sc. Cognitive Science, Birmingham University (1991-1992)

Cognitive science examines the connections between mind and brain by building on work from multiple disciplines including Philosophy, Neurophysiology, Artificial Intelligence and Linguistics. Received excellent marks, particularly in the Artificial Intelligence module. My dissertation project in C++ created a simulation of an artificial creature which evolved to find food and avoid traps using rules created by a genetic algorithm.

B.Sc.(hons) Information Technology 2(i), De Montfort University, (1987-1991)

Covered computing at all levels, from creating logic gates on silicon and design of CPUs through to relational databases, human computer interaction and high level system architecture. Strong emphasis on good design and coding. Designed and implemented a hypertext browser in Pascal as a dissertation project, and was awarded a "first" for the quality of coding and design. Example group project - development of an "intelligent" draughts / checkers playing program in Prolog.

To discuss potential work, regardless of location or duration,
please contact CV@andypryke.com