Tanya Berger-Wolf

Tanya Berger-Wolf is a computational ecologist who left Ohio State University — where she directed the Translational Data Analytics Institute and held professorships in computer science engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and evolution, ecology, and organismal biology — to join the University of Toronto as an Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair of Canada, anticipated for summer 2027.

A pioneer in applying artificial intelligence to ecology, biodiversity, and conservation, Berger-Wolf leads the NSF-funded Imageomics Institute and the US-Canada-funded AI and Biodiversity Change (ABC) Global Climate Center. She co-founded Wild Me, an AI-driven wildlife conservation nonprofit now part of Conservation X Labs and home to the Wildbook project, which UNESCO named one of the top 100 AI solutions supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals; the work has been covered by Forbes, National Geographic, The New York Times, CNN, and The Economist.

She serves as a scientific advisor and board member for organizations including the US National Academies Board on Life Sciences, the US National Committee for the International Union of Biological Sciences, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation X Labs, and the FathomNet project, and has contributed to AI-and-biodiversity working groups convened by the Global Partnership on AI, the WWF, and AAAS and the FBI.

Berger-Wolf holds a dual bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1995) and a PhD in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2002). She then completed an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of New Mexico (2002–2004), working on computational methods for controlled breeding programs and phylogeny reconstruction under advisors Bernard M. E. Moret and David A. Bader. Before joining Ohio State in January 2020, she was on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is an elected AAAI Fellow and has received numerous honors, including the University of Illinois Scholar award, recognition as an AI 100 Global Thought Leader by H2O.ai, and the Ohio State College of Engineering's Lumley Interdisciplinary Research Award.