International Workshop "Artificial Intelligence for Evolutionary and Conservation Biology"

Universidad San Sebastián, through its Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Doctorados (VRID) and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, invites you to participate in the international workshop "Artificial Intelligence for Evolutionary and Conservation Biology", to be held from December 14 to 18, 2026, at the Las Tres Pascualas Campus in Concepción.

The activity will feature the participation of Dr. Daniele Silvestro, researcher at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zürich (Switzerland), who will lead a week of specialized training on the application of artificial intelligence tools to the study of biological evolution and biodiversity conservation.

Under the complementary title "Building Latin American Capacity in Machine Learning, Bayesian Neural Networks, Explainable AI, and Reinforcement Learning", the workshop aims to strengthen the capacities of researchers and graduate students in Latin America, promoting the use of advanced computational methods to address questions related to ecosystems, evolutionary processes, and conservation strategy planning.

Program

Over five days, participants will cover theoretical and practical content on machine learning, neural networks, and artificial intelligence tools applied to biological research:

• Monday, December 14: Fundamentals of Machine Learning for Evolutionary Biology. Supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning.

• Tuesday, December 15: Neural networks and explainable artificial intelligence. Introduction to how neural networks work.

• Wednesday, December 16: Bayesian neural networks and simulation-trained deep learning. Uncertainty modeling and deep learning techniques.

• Thursday, December 17: Reinforcement learning applied to ecosystems and conservation planning.

• Friday, December 18: Language model (LLM) assisted programming, project development, and scientific collaboration.

The program will combine theoretical lectures, practical Python programming exercises, and project work sessions, offering a learning experience focused on applying these tools to research problems.

The activity is aimed at master's and doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career researchers. The sessions will be held entirely in English.

Activity Information:

Date: December 14 to 18, 2026
Schedule: 09:00 to 17:00 hours, with activities until 18:00 hours
Location: Gladys Matus Auditorium, Universidad San Sebastián, Las Tres Pascualas Campus, Concepción, Chile
Language: English
Registration: Until November 16
Local Coordinator: Dr. Cristián F. Hernández

The initiative is supported by ANID, through FONDECYT project 1240219, and the collaboration of institutions and research groups linked to evolutionary biology and conservation.