I went to University of Michigan for undergrad. I admired this graduate program in engineering sustainable systems. It's a dual degree through the school of nature resources and the college of engineering (for example, mechanical engineering department). You apply to both schools and if you get into both, you can get into this program.

Good luck!

I work on shark research using photo ID techniques, and the mother company running all the software is based in the US (called Conservation X). They are doing really exciting stuff to combine technology with conservation efforts. Perhaps its a company you could contact to see if there are internships or anything?

Hi Frida!

As a recent graduate gearing up for grad school applications, I've also been looking into conservation tech programs. As @carlybatist already mentioned, there's an Ecology and Data Science MSc from UCL, and @Frank_van_der_Most mentioned the upcoming program from the University of South Wales. I also want to add the MS in Conservation Technology from Florida Tech. 

I'll let you know if I find more.

Hi, I'm really interested in your project. If you're open to it, I’d be happy to build and send you a couple of data logger units — free of charge — to help monitor temperature, humidity, pressure, and possibly hive weight using a load cell. I’m also considering adding a simple bee traffic sensor to track how often bees enter and leave the hive. This could help reveal patterns related to foraging behavior or colony stress. 

 It would also be an interesting use case for using LoRaWAN to send node data to a central gateway. The data could be exported in line protocol format so you can easily import it into InfluxDB or another dashboarding tool if you'd like to visualize it.

 I’m quite busy with other projects, but I’d be happy to throw something together to get you started, and I’ll include the source code in case you'd like to modify or expand it in the future. Let me know if this sounds helpful — I'd love to support your work.

 Best regards, Travis

So great to hear that you're interested in this incredible sector! I echo Tom in that I don't know of too many specific "conservation tech" degrees as it's such an interdisciplinary field. Perhaps Intro to Conservation Tech Course would be helpful in learning about which direction is most interesting to you to pursue?

About a year ago, @emmahiggins  asked for feedback on a course design for a MsC on Conservation Technology at the University of South Wales. I don't know if that course has started in the meantime, but Emma's email is in her post.

See: https://wildlabs.net/discussion/thoughts-new-msc-conservation-technology

I hope you'll find what you're looking for, Max !

Hi @ziggy_4 , 

I agree with those who commented before, there are a lot of ways to get into the field. I went down the Biology route and then learnt more via my PhD. 

However, we have a Conservation Technology Module as Part of out Wildlife Biology BSc at the University of South Wales - BSc (Hons) International Wildlife Biology - University of South Wales . The course is being rewritten to be 'Ecology and Conservation' and will include this new Conservation Technology Module, where we also link with our engineering department. 

If you have any questions, feel free to email me - emma.higgins@southwales.ac.uk 

Good luck! 

@Frank_van_der_Most  - thanks for the tag!

I'm looking forward to the cool Margo TV we are going to see when we get some AI bear monitoring going in Canada with Margo supplies :) That's going to be awesome.

Here is an image of a bear from last night in the Scandinavian zoo in Denmark. The system triggered on the bear even though it is very dark and this is a digital zoom on a wide angle fixed camera. Despite being very fuzzy we are able to get triggers on these ones due to the use of multiple mitigation techniques so we get long distance, high sensitivity and low false positives. This one for example was checked with multiple successive frames and multiple AI models before calling it a bear.

This is without thermal. But with added thermal and models trained on thermal images the heat signature will effectively be taken up in the model I'm expecting. This would mean that in effect you can tolerate a lower confidence level but it would after all be a living thing as well.



This trigger event for this event was even less clear, but you can still just make out two eyes, and bear in mind (excuse the pun), the actual view from this camera is even wider and the bear further away in a sense as this is a dynamic zoom.

Hi Folks, 

I'm Liz Ferguson from Ocean Science Analytics and just noticing this thread so reaching out to express interest! Thanks for posting that overview Stephanie. 

My company is an ocean science research consulting and online technical training company. We provide hands-on training for software, thus far related to passive acoustic monitoring and R, but have a Marine spatial analysis course coming out using QGIS in 2023. I also teach at a local college, and some analytical courses. Really interested in the group so happy you started it Suz and Andrew!

Hi! I'm Connie, I'm in biomedical and have spent the past few years in Texas, working between Academia and private sector/NGO. I've been coordinating open source technology development between multiple institutions, and private sector, where I create technology and apply it in the field under for profit and non-profit labels. Generally my day is up at 6am, do tech until lunch, see friends and family for lunch, do applied bird work and training, have dinner, do tech, see friends and family in the PM, with field work trips in between.

My part-time project work under USDA Conservation Innovation Grants ends in March, freeing me up 20 hours a week to pursue pure tech development and publishing, and I'll actually have time to say hi to people again!

My biggest interest is bringing in and creating interdisciplinary early career conservationists and training self-made conservationists who have created their careers in areas with few resources and support. Sometimes, one just needs a few critical skills to get their projects off the ground. I mentor research students as well as applied conservation learning using 2,000 captive birds at a propagation aviary outside of Austin, TX, where I'm the Institutional Officer overseeing research for the IACUC.

If you need to practice collaring some birds before you do it in the middle of nowhere and spend the travel money, let me know! My bird research phone number is US and easy to remember 42 42 MAGPIE. (That's the meaning of life twice, and a magpie.)

I've hosted trainees from the Field Museum, Natura Mexicana, a load of universities in US, Europe, and South America... you do birds, you do tech, let's be buddies!!!