ABC Wraps All-Hands Meeting with Hands-On Solutions in Montreal 

The ABC Global Climate Center’s 2024 All-Hands Meeting concluded in October with a wave of new ideas and collaborations aimed at addressing the urgent challenges of climate change and how machine learning can advance ongoing scientific efforts. 

Hosted at the Mila-Quebec AI Institute, the Oct. 5-7 event brought together students, postdocs, and senior researchers from across the world for intensive discussions, flash talks, and workshops. The focus and goals of the event were to reinvigorate and explore the collaborative research efforts and expertise of the people who make up the ABC Global Climate Center.

Graduate student Yuyan Chen said her time at MILA institute during the week was motivating. 

“I think ABC is a great place where ecologists and computer scientists get to meet and learn about each other’s domain and put together our expertise to work on interdisciplinary projects to study biodiversity and climate change,” she said.

Highlights of the event included dynamic five-minute flash talks on research achievements, challenges, and engagement activities. A special session was dedicated to posters and interactive “show and tell” presentations, which allowed attendees to share their latest findings and practical applications in climate science. 

Students and postdocs were a key focus of the event, providing time and focus on their contributions, opening the door for further discussions and presentations. 

Research engineer Anna Viklund, with David Rolnick's Lab, said designing a software tool for such a diverse group of users is critical but challenging, and the events over the last week can help bridge that gap.

“As a front-end developer, or UX designer, you really have to get to know those users,” Viklund said, “and ABC is a really great place to do exactly that – get in touch with people who will actually use the platform.”

ABC extends its gratitude to all participants and organizers for making this year’s All-Hands meeting so eventful and focused on key takeaways for future collaboration.  

About ABC:

The NSF and NSERC-funded Artificial Intelligence and Biodiversity Change (ABC) Global Climate Center brings together ecologists and computer scientists from six universities in the United States and Canada to develop new AI-enabled, data-supported approaches for understanding the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. The Center will develop and implement a variety of AI-based methods and tools for integration and analysis of biodiversity data from remote sensing imagery from satellites and low-flying aircrafts, ground-based visual and audio sensors, DNA sequences, and citizen science efforts, enabling the global monitoring, analysis, and assessment of biodiversity changes. The Center is pursuing these goals through a broad network of stakeholders from the U.S., UK and EU, plus Canada, Australia, Africa, India, and Central America, including representatives from academic institutions, multi-institution research collaborations, governmental agencies, NGOs, and industry.