Building a world served by
exceptional professionals

About us

7 years

founded in
September 2014

80

employees in
Canada and Australia

400+

academic
partners

Our values

Caring

We deeply care about the well-being of those around us, including the team and partners we work with, and the applicants they represent.

Driven

We strive for excellence and aim to produce our best work that helps us achieve our company vision.

Curious

We encourage experimentation to feed our innate desire to learn and to push our company forward.

Altus empowers higher education institutions to look beyond book smarts, and to identify and nurture exceptional professionals by using unique data to generate meaningful insights that influence key academic decisions.

We do this through Altus Suite, made up of Casper, Snapshot, and Duet – assessments that provide a clearer, more holistic view of applicants. Our assessments are used by over 400 academic partners in the US, Canada, Australia (and growing!) with 200,000+ applicants taking our assessments each year, including 90% of Canadian and US medical school applicants. We also host the Admissions Summit, an annual 3-day conference, and power the Alo Grant, an annual $100,000 research fund.

Why we started Altus

Our solutions

Altus Suite

Altus Suite

Admissions Summit

Admissions Summit

Alo Grant

Alo Grant

Altus Academy

Altus Academy

Our story

Investigating the problem
Harold Reiter, MD MEd and co-creator of the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) began to work with Kelly Dore, PhD to address applicant screening before the interview. Their research led them to create a situational judgement test that would look at WHY an individual would behave a certain way.
Initial development and feedback
Their idea was supported by the Medical Council of Canada, the Stemmler Fund of the National Board of Medical Examiners in the US and the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. Their feedback and guidance helped refine the test and influenced the decision to make Casper available online to widen access to applicants.
Casper goes live at McMaster University
At the risk of great embarrassment if it did not work, McMaster’s Faculty of Health Sciences gave the green light to proceed with Casper. The test was successfully implemented for the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
Altus Assessments is born
After medical schools in Canada started expressing interest in Casper, Altus Assessments was formed. The company would take over researching, developing and delivering the Casper test to schools around the world.
Welcome below the border
New York Medical College and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School become the first two US medical schools to have their applicants take Casper for admission.
The land down under
A group of teacher education programs in Victoria State, Australia introduce Casper to their admissions process to help meet the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s (AITSL) regulatory requirements for improving the quality of teachers across the country.
The year of many milestones
Altus Assessments delivered Casper to over 100,000 applicants the same year it celebrated its 5th anniversary and made Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 Companies to Watch list. The company also hosted its first ever Admissions Summit.
The year of giving back
Altus Assessments launched the $100,000 Alo Grant to accelerate new research in admissions. The company also launched Altus Academy (formerly Altus Education) to address the absence of conferences during the pandemic and provide an online resource centre and gathering spot to help the admissions community connect, learn and grow.
2004-2005
2006-2009
2010
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2015
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2019
2020

Leadership team

Rich Emrich, CEO and co-founder
Rich Emrich
CEO and Co-founder
Kelly Dore
Kelly Dore
Co-founder and VP, Growth
Harold Reiter, co-founder
Harold Reiter
Co-founder
Brian Clare
Brian Clare
VP, One45
Chris Foster
Chris Foster
VP, Product
Darryl Kraemer, VP of sales
Darryl Kraemer
VP, Revenue
Irwin Liu
VP, Strategy
Briana Knowlton, director of operations and research
Briana Knowlton
Sr Director, Operations
Destiny Poruchny
Destiny Poruchny
Director, Product
Erin
Erin Bury
Director, Finance
Gill
Gill Sitarenios
Director, Research
Luay Thomas
Luay Thomas
Director, Customer Success
Meegan Carlson
Meegan Carlson
Director, One45 Customer Operations
Rebecca Shore
Rebecca Shore
Director, Product Marketing
Director of Engineering in Software Development
Simranveer Grewal
Director, Engineering Software Development
Tobin Edwards
Tobin Edwards
VP Technology in Software Development
Tony Vlismas, director of marketing
Tony Vlismas
Director, Marketing
Vasu Desikachary
Director, Sales

Board of Directors

Bernard Lim, Board of Directors
Bernard Lim
Chair, Board of Directors
Jim Liang
Jim Liang
Director
Matt Holland, director
Matt Holland
Director

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