Dr. Andrew J. Fairbairn

I use modern technology, mainly acoustics and machine learning, to better understand and protect the natural world. My doctorate at the Technical University of Munich built acoustic sensing networks across more than 500 sites in the city and tested whether automated identification could hold up against expert ecologists, which it did. I am now a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, working on the blue-throated macaw in the Llanos de Moxos in Bolivia. Fewer than 450 are left in the wild. Two questions matter most for management: why nests succeed or fail, and where the birds range once breeding ends. To address them we are satellite-tagging adults, instrumenting nests with cameras and acoustic recorders, and surveying candidate habitat with passive acoustic monitoring. Alongside this we are developing models to identify individuals acoustically, which should give a finer-grained picture of behaviour and movement to support the species’ recovery.

In addition to my scientific work, I am building acoustic sensing systems for use across applications and environments, from hardware in the field to models that turn sound into actionable insights. Nature Integrity is where most of that work goes. RARElab, the non-profit I founded, covers the other half of the research: rare, lost and understudied species, and getting what we find into conservation practice. I am glad to hear from collaborators, investors and others working in acoustics and AI across domains.

A smaller strand of work sits outside all of this. Together with my partner Dr. Annika Neuhaus, who is an author and editor, I build tools that help writers work more efficiently: Draftz, a mobile writing app built on the idea that great stories don’t always develop at a desk, and headmark, which helps authors find the right home for their books and stop missing open submission calls.