The present disclosure is directed to an apparatus and method for data analysis for use in data classification via training of a recurrent neural network to identify features from limited reference sets. Based on a one-shot learning algorithm, the method includes selecting a subset of reference data and training a classifier with the selected data. This small subset of reference data can be iteratively tuned to enhance classification of the data according to the desired output of the method. The apparatus may be configured to allow a user to interactively select a subset of reference data which is used to train the classifier and to evaluate classifier performance.