SERGE WICH

Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.

- Kathryn Hulick

When he’s not out in the field, he teaches primate biology and does research at Liverpool John Moores University in England.

Wich has pioneered the use of new technology in conservation. In 2011, he and his colleague Lian Pin Koh of the National University of Singapore (NUS) in Asia built and tested one of the first drones used to study wildlife. One year later, the pair founded ConservationDrones.org. This organization helps wildlife researchers around the world use drone technology.

In 2019, Wich started another technology project, called Conservation AI. This time, he partnered with some of his colleagues at Liverpool John Moores University: computer scientists Carl Chalmers and Paul Fergus and astrophysicist Steven Longmore. Conservation AI is an online platform offering machine learning models that tag images from drones and camera traps. The platform has processed 18 million images, and counting.

Wich’s main area of interest, though, has always been primates and the tropical forests where they live. He is an editor of the book Orangutans: Geographic Variation in Behavioral Ecology and Conservation.

WHAT GOT YOU STARTED STUDYING ORANGUTANS?

I started during my master’s studies at the University of Utrecht [in the Netherlands] in 1993, focusing on a site in Sumatra with some really amazing lowland forest and beautiful large fig trees. The university had a research site there, and I applied for a chance to go. I was lucky enough to be selected.