Abstract:

The ongoing biodiversity crisis is rapidly escalating with alarming rates of ecosystem deterioration and species extinction. In the face of biodiversity loss, decision-support software allows scientists and policymakers to model, monitor, and analyze ecological data, facilitating more informed and timely decisions for conservation and restoration efforts.

In this talk, we will discuss the role that mathematical optimization, open science, and AI plays in conservation decision-support. The first half will provide an overview of my PhD research, centered on optimization frameworks for protected area site selection. The latter half will focus on my work at ESIIL, where I will present a dynamic tool for California decision-makers to map and query protected land data, made possible with LLMs and open data. From exploring local biodiversity to making informed land investment decisions, this work provides transparent and inclusive decision tools.

Speaker Bio:

Cassie Buhler is a postdoctoral associate at ESIIL.  She holds a PhD from Drexel University in Operations Research with a graduate minor in Computational Data Science and a BS from the University of Utah in Mathematics. Cassie's research aims to support conservation prioritization and decision-making by leveraging spatial optimization, open science, and AI.