A workshop on quality scientific data analysis with large language models.
Students, researchers and professionals are invited to join Associate Professor Chris Brown, University of Tasmania, with the Australian Marine Sciences Association South-East Queensland Branch (SEQ AMSA) and the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science (CBCS), for this workshop on Thursday 11 September 2025.
About the workshop
If you are doing data analysis, you are probably using language models (e.g., ChatGPT) to help you write code, but are you using them in the most effective way?
Language models have different biases to humans and so make different types of errors. This 1-day workshop, supported by SEQ AMSA and CBCS, will cover how to use language models to learn scientific computing and conduct reliable environmental analyses.
The workshop will cover:
- how to use different software tools from the simple interfaces, like ChatGPT, to advanced tools that can run and test code by themselves and keep going until the analysis is complete (and even written up)
- vibe coding and how future analysis workflows will change dramatically from today
- best practice prompting techniques that can dramatically improve model performance for complex data analysis
- applying language models to common environmental applications such as GLMs and multivariate statistics
- issues including environmental impacts, copyright and ethics
- an interactive discussion of people's concerns about AI, but also the opportunities.
Learn more about the workshop content
Who should take this workshop?
The content that will be taught is suitable for anyone using computing coding (e.g., R, python) to do data analysis. Examples will be in marine conservation science using the R language, but the methods are general and transferrable to any field. The AI software is also general to any programming language and there will not be much actual coding (the AI does that!) so participants can follow along in other languages.
To follow the practical applications, participants will need to have some experience in computing coding. Students are presumed to know some basic coding skills and tasks, like reading data and visualising data using a programming language. To use these AI tools effectively, understanding how scientific computing works is a must. If you need an introduction to R or python, then it is recommended to learn these first without the influence of AI.
Workshop registration
Thursday 11 September 2025
9am–4pm
UQ St Lucia campus (venue TBC)
$150 (students and AMSA members), $300 (others)
Specific instructions, schedule and details of the workshop will be sent to registered participants closer to the date.
Contact
For any questions, please email cbcs-workshops@uq.edu.au.
About Associate Professor Brown
Chris is an Associate Professor of Fisheries Science in the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Chris specialises in data analysis and modelling, skills he uses to better inform environmental decision makers.
R takes Chris many places, working mostly on marine ecosystems from tuna fisheries to mangrove forests. Chris is an experienced teacher of R and has taught R to 100s of people over the years, from the basics to more sophisticated modelling. He has taught R to a range of people, from undergraduates to his own supervisors.
Generative AI holds great promise and perils for science. So this year, he has been teaching workshops on the topic to help conservation scientists grapple with the implications of this new technology.
The AI in Research Workshop is supported by the Australian Marine Sciences Association South-East Queensland Branch and the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science at The University of Queensland.