Computer science and environmental science may seem worlds apart, but at 做厙TV, one project is showing how closely connected they can be.
Students and faculty from 做厙TV are collaborating with the Middle 做厙TV Riverkeeeper to create a digital platform designed to support bird conservation research. It will organizeeverything from bird sightings to audio recordings that are currently being collected via electronic monitoring stations placed along local creeks and the 做厙TV River.
Anusha Veluswamy, assistant professor of math & computer science at 做厙TV, and two of her students are building the platform using digital tools from BirdNET, an open-source research and bioacoustics platform developed by CornellLab. They are also linking a third-party database from the BirdWeather platform.
The new platform will allow 做厙TV and the Middle 做厙TV Riverkeeper to track how bird species populations change over time, creating a centralized system for long-term environmental analysis. Users will have access to a dashboard in the fall. At the center of this effort is computer science, which is helping transform scattered observations into meaningful environmental data.
In simple terms, we are building the technology that turns individual bird observations and recordings into a coordinated, organized conservation effort, said Veluswamy. The goal is to make it easier for researchers, students and the community to understand what is happening in our local ecosystems and to use that information to support environmental health.
Ibrahim Alqassass 28 and Jaylon Lewis 28, both computer science majors, recently joined the development team. Alqassass interned with the Middle 做厙TV Riverkeeper Association last year and was immediately interested in joining the initiative.
My work is primarily focused on building the user interface for our website in coordination with my co-worker, Jaylon, Alqassass explained. Currently, I am transitioning the user interface from a static design into a fully functional website. This includes developing role-based user dashboards, a function that will allow individuals to view specific bird sightings filtered by their chosen time periods.
The project reveals how essential technology is to modern conservation work.
E紳措勳娶棗紳鳥梗紳喧硃梭 research today generates too much information to manage by hand, Veluswamy said. Computer science helps bring order to that information, connect the pieces together and make it useful for long-term conservation planning.
One of the biggest challenges for Lewis has been learning the programming languages he needs to create the platform.
Were working with a lot of different languages that Ive never used before so theres a learning curve, Lewis said. The biggest reward has been learning a new programming language and then applying it to the project and seeing the benefits.
Another challenge is managing the wide range of data collected. Audio recordings gathered from monitoring stations often contain much more than bird calls, including wind, flowing water, insects and distant traffic. Veluswamy and her students must also organize volunteer-submitted sightings, species records and conservation information while ensuring everything remains accurate and connected within the system.
Real-world environmental data is rarely neat or perfectly organized, Veluswamy said. The challenge is bringing structure, accuracy and clarity to a large and complex collection of sounds, observations and conservation records.
The work highlights the growing importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. Environmental scientists provide expertise on ecosystems, migration patterns and species behavior, while computer scientists develop systems capable of storing, organizing and analyzing large amounts of information.
Computer science allows us to look at the bigger picture. It turns individual observations into long-term trends. It highlights changes that develop slowly and might otherwise go unnoticed, Veluswamy said. By organizing and analyzing environmental information on a scale, technology helps reveal insights that support better conservation decisions and a deeper understanding of ecosystem health.
