CSML Workshop: Collaborative opportunities for computational statistics and biodiversity science

UCL Contact: Victoria Nicholl (Visitors from outside UCL please email in advance).
Date/Time: 17 Oct 12, 09:00 - 10:00
Venue: Mappin Pavillon, Zoological Society of London, London NW1 4R
Further Information:

For full details and registration please see http://statisticsandbiodiversityworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Abstract

Aim: This workshop is for both the leading UCL statistical and machine learning researchers and the leading UK biodiversity scientists (Zoological Society of London, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UCL Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment and CoMPLEX UCL). We will explore how to strike up efficient and mutually beneficial collaborations that will really challenge the state of the art methods and biodiversity science. This workshop will establish collaborations between Zoological Society of London, Microsoft Research and UCL with a view to forming an ‘Advanced Technology for Nature Unit’ (www.technologyfornature.org).

Background: Wild nature is declining rapidly as humans use more of earth’s resources. Better tools are needed to document, monitor, and conserve wildlife populations. Advances in methods to collect biodiversity data (such as global citizen science programmes) are creating a critical need for better statistical approaches to process and analyze this information. From a computational statistics perspective, these new biodiversity data sources are presenting a challenge to available tools and there is a great opportunity to develop new methodological approaches.

The workshop will be written up as a ‘Workshop Report’ in Biology Letters with all the participants as authors.