Pretty much all biostats classes in higher ed will be taught in R, you'd have to separately take a Python class. But even that would require the knowledge that you might need Python at all, which is not something I realized until far later in my career (in undergrad, it was what the computer science people took so how could it possibly be helpful for me yadda yadda). I say this too having been an undergrad right around when the big data revolution really took off, so I'm not sure what kind of curricular changes have been made following that. At my undergrad & Master's universities at least, there have not been any. One biostats course required for each, taught in R.

In terms of tech like hardware, ecology/conservation programs seem woefully under-focused on this. You can take a conservation class that might talk it about it for one lecture or a genetics class where you talk about eDNA, etc. but it doesn't seem as embedded into the overall curriculum as much as it should be. 

I of course am only speaking from my own experiences and those around me who have come from different universities. I know there are some universities doing it better, for example Andrew Schulz teaches a Conservation Tech class at Georgia Tech. Florida Tech has a Conservation Tech Master's program, as does Liverpool John Moore in the UK and Holland College in Canada. Pacific Union College also has a Conservation Tech concentration in their Bio department. 

There are also centres within universities that are focused on certain aspects of conservation tech - we have a bunch listed in the Conservation Tech Directory (you can filter by academia). 

The title of that article is "File Not Found". That threw me off since I totally thought I hit a 404 and the article didn't exist anymore. It's super interesting though so don't get thrown off by the title.

Notable quote:
“Take their phones away and get ‘em on Windows 98.”

Also, that article makes me feel so oooooold....

Hi everyone,

I am Rita Pucci from Italy but I am bouncing everywhere to follow my work. I am a Computer Science researcher, currently, at the University of Udine (north Italy).

My research is focused on building new machine learning models for computer vision, in particular for image classification and manipulation. I developed a machine learning model that used signals from sensors to identify tortoises behaviour and a model to classify species from camera traps in forests in India. I really loved working for conservation and I want to be involved again in the conservation field.

I joined this community because it seems to be a safe place to start connections with people from other research fields and get in touch with (maybe) people for collaboration.

I really want to contribute to this community as much as I can. 

Enjoy your time

Rita

Hi everyone!

I'm a recently graduated Industrial Designer, looking for some opportunities in wildlife conservation projects. I can offer knowledge in the industry and production processes, design and development of product alternatives, project management and decision-making. Feel free to message me for any inquiries!

Hello everyone! 

I am currently a senior undergraduate student working on landscape genetics research using RAD seq data and GIS data. The organism we've been studying is Rana aurora  the Northern Red Legged Frog. I'll be stating a new project this summer looking at how noise pollution affects learning and communication in birds. I come from a non technical background but I am extremely interested in applying machine learning and ai to the research I work on. 

Hey Neelang,

Would love to join in on the Slack if you folks are still active. I'm thinking of taking up related courses as well.

Cheers.

Hi 

I'd be interested too, but as a very green newb would I be able to follow or would another group/course be more appropriate to establish some background first. 
cheers 

Hey guys,

please count me in. I am software engineer and would love to get some well structured knowledge about conservation, environment, ecology, climate change, biodiversity loss and alike. I'll be more than happy to create learning group with you.

Hi everyone,

I've taken several courses from the Edx platform and a few from Nat Geo.

I highly recommend Edx courses. They cover material with enough detail that I've always learned something but never been overwhelmed. Many of them provide additional material for more in-depth reading.

I can't speak to any of the other platforms on the list, but I intend to check them out.