ISO Analytics Appoints ISU Computer Science Alumnus Karthik Balakrishnan as the Vice President of Analytics

October 31, 2007

Dr. Karthik Balakrishnan, an alumnus of the Iowa State University Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory and the Department of Computer Science, has recently accepted a position as the Vice President of Analytics at ISO Analytics (iiA) in San Francisco. A unit of Insurance Services Office (ISO), a leading provider of data, analytics and decision support to the Property and Casualty Insurance industry, iiA's mission is to leverage advanced data mining techniques to create innovative and value-generating products and solutions for the insurance industry. In his role, Karthik oversees all of iiA's analytical activities.

Prior to joining iiA, Karthik led the Analytical Services organization at Fireman's Fund Insurance Company (a company of Allianz), where his team had notable successes through initiatives such as claim fraud detection, and underwriting rules analysis (among others), leading to increases in annual financial savings or profits in excess of $5Million. Karthik has also had stints building and running a Data Mining/Web mining group at Obongo Inc. (an eCommerce startup), and developing claim fraud prediction models at Allstate Research and Planning Center.

Karthik received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science in 1998, specializing in machine learning and data mining, under the supervision of Professor Vasant Honavar. Karthik has over 20 publications on topics spanning neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, spatial learning, and cognitive modelling. He is a co-editor of an MIT press book on Evolutionary Synthesis of Intelligent Agents. Karthik is especially proud of his work on the computational modeling of the Hippocampal formation and its role in spatial learning, localization, and navigation, which was carried out as part of his Ph.D. Research in the ISU Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory. For his doctoral research, Karthik was awarded the Iowa State University Research Excellence Award in 1998.

Karthik and his wife Usha, live with their three children in Novato, CA. We are proud to count Karthik Balakrishnan among our alumni and wish him continued success in his career.