Tech Tools for the Future: Zebras, AI, and Girls in ICT Day

By Emma Reid

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / April 18, 2024 / I'm excited to announce that Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf will be joining our special Women Rock-IT broadcast to support International Girls in ICT Day, featuring women who have turned their passion for technology into rewarding and successful careers.

Foto: Accesswire

Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf is the Director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute  and a Professor of Computer Science Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the Ohio State University (OSU).

As a computational ecologist, Tanya's research is at the unique intersection of computer science, wildlife biology, and social sciences. She will speak on International Girls in ICT Day, hosted by Cisco Networking Academy's Women Rock-IT Program. The theme for this year's event is Are You AI Ready? And for those who may not be aware, AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, which is what Tanya is going to be sharing more about.

Q: What was your motivation to get into computer science, and what was your path to get there?

A: I always wanted to do math. I even declared that when I was five in front of my whole family. So I went straight for math, eventually realizing that the type of math I like is the math that's the foundation of computer science. I went on to do a theoretical computer science PhD, designing algorithms and doing proofs.

Along the way I met an ecologist who is now my husband and partner. He really charmed me with stories of industrious spiders and shy flowers and took me on nature walks to try to get me over my fear of bugs.

I intentionally switched from a very theoretical computer science PhD to designing computational methods for answering ecological questions.

A zebra's friend

Q: What inspired you to focus on using AI in conservation and what keeps you motivated in the face of the ongoing extinction crisis?

A: There is both the challenge and the inspiration that keeps me going.

The way I got started in conservation was really on a bet. I was working with biologists who study social behavior of animals such as zebras. I got really curious about how they know who a zebra's friend is.

After watching them take 20 minutes just to identify one individual zebra using the available technology at the time, the impatient engineer in me said that there had to be a better way of doing it.