This project suits for a student who is highly motivated to make an impact on wildlife conservation activities, support climate change mitigation and fight against poaching activities. The student will be supported and advised by a team including academics and PhD students. This project is a collaboration between Cardiff University’s Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) (https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/danau-girang-field-centre), School of Bioscience and the School of Computer Science.

Your project is to predict animal (e.g., elephants) movement from previously collected animal collar data. We have a dataset collected by DGFC researchers for you to use. Instead of developing a single technique, you will develop, test, and compare multiple prediction techniques to see what techniques work best. Links to useful learning material and tutorials will be provided to you to help start your project. In conservation activities, predicting animal movements are critical to protecting them. It helps law enforcement rangers to organise patrols and make sure poachers don’t get close to animals. You will learn Data science and AI skills in this project while making an impact on a real work project.

At the end of completing the project (distinction level or very close), the student will be given the opportunity to visit Danau Girang Field Centre, Sabah, Malaysia. Expenses are fully paid by the university. This is visit is not compulsory. The students get to choose not to visit as well. Our past research are listed here: https://sites.google.com/view/forestobservatory/home