Interview with AAAI Fellow Tanya Berger-Wolf: AI for ecology, biodiversity, and conservation

Each year the AAAI recognizes a group of individuals who have made significant, sustained contributions to the field of artificial intelligence by appointing them as Fellows. Over the course of the next few months, we'll be talking to some of the 2026 AAAI Fellows. In this interview, we met with Tanya Berger-Wolf, who was elected as a Fellow . We found out about her latest research developing a foundation model for biology, the insights this model can provide, interesting collaborations over the years, and what the future has in store. Could you start with a quick introduction and tell us about the broad area that you're working in? My area of research is in AI for ecology, biodiversity, and conservation.