Dr. Van Horn joined The Modellers in April 2009, where he applies his background in Bayesian statistics and Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to developing the company’s proprietary statistical software. Dr. Van Horn enjoys the interplay between academic research and hard-nosed pragmatism at The Modellers. His work history reflects this balance, with experience in both academia and the corporate world. He taught computer science at Michigan State University and at North Dakota State University, and carried out research in the areas of machine learning and acoustic models for speech recognition. As Research Scientist for Fonix Corporation, he applied Bayesian methods to training acoustic models for speech recognition. His software development experience spans nearly thirty years. He wrote nearly half of the microcode for the MasPar MP-1 massively parallel computer and created the NewsTracker service for Excite, an early Internet portal. At Quest Software he turned his attention to improving software quality, leading the Lindon lab into the use of test-driven development. Dr. Van Horn lives south of the Salt Lake valley, and has a wife and four children. For fun he hikes, sings, plays table tennis, and reads on a wide variety of topics. Kevin received his Ph.D. in computer science from Brigham Young University, an M.S. in computer science from the California Institute of Technology, and a dual B.S. in physics and computer science from the University of Utah. |
