Hugo speaks with Christie Bahlai, Assistant Professor at Kent State University, about data science, ecology, and the adoption of techniques such as machine learning in academic research. What are the biggest challenges in ecology that data science can help to solve? What does the intersection of open science and data science look like? In scientific research, what is happening at the interface between data science & machine learning methods, which are pattern-based, and traditional research methods, which are classically hypothesis driven? Is there a paradigm shift occurring here? Listen to find out!