Software Designer Joins Yorktown University Math Faculty

May 30, 2012 - PRLog -- DENVER, Colo. – Yorktown University, an accredited Denver, Colorado-based online university, is pleased to announce the appointment of Monte Hancock, an expert in statistics and artificial intelligence applications for data mining, as associate professor of mathematics.

Mr. Hancock teaches Yorktown University’s undergraduate course in statistics, Math 104, which is a required course in the associate of arts and bachelor of arts in business administration programs.  Math 104 also fulfills the general education requirement in mathematics at Yorktown University.

A resident of Melbourne, Florida, Mr. Hancock is the chief scientist for Celestech Inc., a technology development and engineering firm, where he is responsible for creating innovative solutions in computing, communications, analytics and signal processing. His principal research interest is in numerical and semi-numerical algorithms for supercomputing applications in pattern recognition and predictive modeling.
Mr. Hancock’s professional career spans 30 years of increasingly demanding positions in software engineering, algorithm development and technical leadership. His professional experience includes service as a grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation and principal investigator on many data mining efforts for both government and industry. He is author of “Practical Data Mining” and co-author of “Data Mining Explained: A Manager’s Guide to Customer-centric Business Intelligence,” which is a primer for business managers who do not have technological backgrounds but need to understand data mining for business decisions.

Mr. Hancock earned a master of science in mathematics from Syracuse University and a bachelor of arts in mathematics from Rice University.  

“We are extremely excited to have Mr. Hancock join Yorktown University as a member of our founding faculty. His availability creates yet another great opportunity for our students to study under the online tutelage of nationally and globally renowned experts,” said Richard J. Bishirjian, Ph.D., the university’s president. “Mr. Hancock not only is a wonderful teacher but is a man of many talents and insights, as our students will soon discover.”

Mr. Hancock’s range of activities include teaching ancient Greek at Heritage Classical Center in Melbourne, serving as an ordained elder with Church of the Rock in Melbourne and enjoying digital astro-photography as a hobby.

Mr. Hancock is self-taught in ancient Greek, explaining that he began studying the language on his own 40 years ago so he could understand the Old Testament and New Testament in their early Greek forms. He now passes his skills to junior high and high school students “to bring them to a place where they can make reasonable translations of ancient documents,” he said. “The language of the New Testament really was the chief means of communication in the ancient world before Latin took hold in the first and second centuries, in government and commerce, and on statuary, buildings, plaques and stonework.”

For Mr. Hancock, exploring the patterns of ancient Greek language has similarities to making modern breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. “Information theory includes how one can mathematize language, reduce patterns of speech to forms where it can be analyzed and manipulated mathematically,” he said. “My main project right now is in producing a software application where robots can carry on conversations in particular domains … at a reasonable level where you would not recognize that you are not talking to a human.”

Mr. Hancock also loves bringing his mathematical expertise to academia, where he can teach a basic course to help future business managers gain a solid understanding of statistics. “When I teach statistics, which I do frequently and have been doing for a long time, I always include a practical business project for the students,” he said. “I teach students how to construct models that look at historical data and make predictions about business decisions – typically in something like predicting future prices of commodities or the next quarter’s earnings. I want my students to be able to use these skills as if they are on the job the very next day.”

Modern managers, Mr. Hancock said, cannot afford to make business decisions solely on intuition. “If your business margins are very tight or you’re in a field that’s very competitive, you cannot afford to be roughly correct,” he said. “Even in a small business, you need to recognize the habits of your customers, what they buy, what they want to buy, whether they buy. You need more of this type of precision to out-think the competition.”

Mr. Hancock joins 37 other members of Yorktown University’s founding faculty who come from disciplines in mathematics, history, philosophy, government, constitutional law, art history, architecture, religious studies, classics, biology, accounting, marketing and other disciplines that contribute to the curriculum in 12 degree and certificate programs.

Yorktown University is an accredited Internet university that is focused on academic disciplines in politics, American history, constitutional law, economics and culture. The university is a member of the Association of Christian Schools International and offers its degree programs solely via the Internet.