Justin Kitzes, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, has been awarded a $91,000 grant from Microsoft and National Geographic AI for Earth Innovation to develop the first free, open source models to allow academic researchers, agencies, non-profits and citizen-scientists to identify bird songs in acoustic field recordings. The goal is to use the system to improve research and conservation efforts by monitoring bird species population change. Work is expected to kick off in early 2019, with the models and associated software to be released by the end of the year.