Join Wellington Forest & Bird for our 2025 AGM and to hear from Prof Stephen Marsland about a fascinating application of mathematics to understand bird song.
Members and interested parties welcome. AGM papers will be available to members in advance.
Stephen Marsland is a Professor of Mathematics and Data Science at Victoria University of Wellington. Twelve or so years ago he decided that sounds -- specifically bird sounds -- could be described as mathematical objects, and therefore the kind of maths he was interested in could be used for conservation. This has given him more opportunities than are reasonable for a mathematician to work with taonga species of Aotearoa New Zealand. It has also led to the AviaNZ software and research programme, which tries to recognise the calls of New Zealand birds, and turn them into estimates of their abundance in an area. The software is freely available for anybody to use. When not wrangling kiwi and other birds he works on mathematical questions in evolutionary game theory (including why humans cooperate, and why sexual reproduction arose) and infinite dimensional geometry.
AGM 6PM followed by a cuppa
Speaker at 7PM
Please register for catering purposes at the link below.