IRC Partners with LMU Master’s Students to Help Develop Artificial Intelligence Classification Model Used for Research

With technology constantly changing, one thing that is taking the world by storm is the use of artificial intelligence (AI), and that is no exception for organizations like Irvine Ranch Conservancy (IRC). IRC has partnered with Master of Science in Business Analytics students at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) to develop AI software that will expand IRC’s ability to process images from their wildlife cameras. 

The master’s students, Minh Tran, Xi Chen, Valentin Gulyas, and Michelle Shaffer, worked on developing the AI model for IRC’s Monitoring and Research team, enhancing their existing software that processes images from wildlife cameras placed throughout the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks. Previously, the IRC team had to manually sift through images to identify the animal species within them, which was not very efficient when thousands of photos are recorded weekly. With the new AI model, the image classification capacity has been greatly expanded. The students developed a classification model with over 90% accuracy that can now take the first pass at identifying any animals within the camera trap images.

Monitoring and research are crucial elements of IRC’s work in Orange County. The Monitoring and Research team uses wildlife cameras to assess the current state and track the progress of wildlife on the Landmarks. This data is used to inform land management decisions to ensure ongoing success. The implementation of AI in the image classification process has already shown successful results, as IRC can now process images faster, allowing the team to process more data and gain deeper insights into the state of the land.

Though the new AI image classification model has already been implemented, it is still considered to be in the development stage. The collaboration with the master’s students has concluded, and IRC is now focused on refining the system by continuously feeding it more images to increase the accuracy of the classifications. 

Even though this specific project has wrapped up, IRC plans to maintain its partnership with the LMU Master of Science in Business Analytics department and engage more groups of master’s students in similar projects. IRC recognizes the potential of AI as a valuable tool in other aspects of their work, and the team enjoys working with students from various backgrounds to introduce them to work opportunities in conservation. Given that many of these students have a business background, it is important to expose them to different industries where their skills can contribute to the organization’s success. IRC is looking forward to more projects together!