Alejandro de la Fuente

Work

For years my office was a rainforest. I tracked possums and birds across the Australian Wet Tropics, and my models helped decide which species received legal protection. Research taught me to design the measurement first, state every assumption and deliver under real constraints. I hold my AI work to the same standard: if it can't be evaluated, it can't be trusted.

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Volunteering and other field experiences
  • Vertebrate biodiversity monitoring in the Australian Wet Tropics.
    • Organisation: James Cook University.
    • Country: Australia.
    • Year: 2019 - present.
  • Yellow-tailed woolly monkey Lagothrix flavicauda, survey, mammals’ inventory and community-based conservation work in the Peruvian Cloud Forest and the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest.
    • Organisation: Neotropical Primate Conservation and Lush Cosmetics.
    • Country: Peru.
    • Year: 2018-2019.
  • Breeding bird survey at Fairburn Ings Natural Reserve.
    • Organisation: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
    • Country: UK.
    • Year: 2018.
  • Exploration and description of Andean flora and fauna in Puyehue National Park.
    • Organisation: CONAF.
    • Country: Chile.
    • Year: 2016-2017.
  • Annual population monitoring of the Darwin’s Frog (Rhinoderma darwinii).
    • Organisation: Andres Bello University.
    • Country: Chile.
    • Year: 2017.
  • Big cats monitoring in Kaa-Iya National Park.
    • Organisation: Bolivian National Parks (with the support of University of Florida and WCS).
    • Country: Bolivia.
    • Year: 2017.
  • Population monitoring of black rats, population and breeding monitoring of cormorants and Cory’s shearwater.
    • Organisation: SPEA Life+ Berlengas.
    • Country: Portugal.
    • Year: 2016.
  • Population monitoring of amphibians and semi-aquatic mammals.
    • Organisation: University of Salamanca.
    • Country: Spain.
    • Year: 2016.
  • Population dynamics of Balearic lacertids.
    • Organisation: University of Salamanca.
    • Country: Spain.
    • Year: 2016.
  • Recovery and release of endemic Iberian fauna.
    • Organisation: AMUS.
    • Country: Spain.
    • Year: 2015.
  • Rescue and rehabilitation of primates.
    • Organisation: RAINFER.
    • Country: Spain.
    • Year: 2014-2015.
  • Animal care and wildlife rehabilitation and release.
    • Organisation: Zoo de Santillana Foundation.
    • Country: Spain.
    • Year: 2013.
Professional development and community-based conservation
  • Biodiversity consulting.
    • Organisation: Wet Tropics Management Authority.
    • Country: Australia.
    • Year: 2024.
  • Expert workshop participation: Improving the resilience of the Wet Tropics bioregion.
    • Organisation: Wet Tropics Management Authority.
    • Country: Australia.
    • Year: 2024.
  • Training of local rangers in biodiversity monitoring.
    • Organisation: Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Services.
    • Country: Australia.
    • Year: 2020 - 2022.
  • International Ecology School.
    • Country: Thailand.
    • Year: 2022.
  • Indigenous rangers training in biodiversity monitoring, data collection, curation, and interpretation.
    • Organisation: Abriculture: indigenous environmental organisation.
    • Country: Australia.
    • Year: 2020.
  • Indigenous community engagement for the conservation of the critically endangered Yellow-tailed woolly monkey.
    • Organisation: Neotropical Primate Conservation.
    • Country: Peru.
    • Year: 2018.
  • Training of local rangers in biodiversity monitoring.
    • Organisation: Bolivian National Parks.
    • Country: Bolivia.
    • Year: 2017.
  • Training of local rangers in biodiversity monitoring, community engagement, and science communication.
    • Organisation: CONAF - Chilean National Parks.
    • Country: Chile.
    • Year: 2016 - 2017.
Field and modelling skills
  • Animal trapping
  • Modelling
    • Population dynamics
    • Biophysical models
    • Occupancy
    • Species distribution
    • Landscape ecology
    • Movement
    • Climatic data and other time-series
    • Spatial analysis
  • Stats
    • Frequentist
    • Bayesian
  • Coding
    • R
    • WinBUGS
    • Python
    • SQL
  • AI
    • Prompt engineering
    • Agentic AI
  • Languages
    • Spanish, first language
    • English, IELTS 7.0
    • French, basic
Media engagement
  • Possums threatened by climate change
  • Aussi birds dissapearing due to warming
  • Global warming drives Wet Tropics possums species fromt their mountain homes.
  • It’s Easy to Hate Selfies. But Can They Also Be a Force for Good?
  • Woody bamboo flowering in Puyehue National Park.
    • Article. El Austral, Chile.
  • Tropical rainforest research

Education

Certificates and training

Bayesian and hierarchical modelling

R

  • R for Data Science
  • Statistics in R workshop, Dr Murray Logan (AIMS). Covers tidyverse, ggplot2, R Markdown, linear models, GLMs and GLMMs, mixed-effects models and multivariate analyses.

Python and machine learning

  • The Complete Python Bootcamp: From Zero to Hero in Python (certificate). Covers core Python, data structures, OOP, error handling, file work and web scraping with Requests and BeautifulSoup.
  • Python for Data Science and Machine Learning Bootcamp (certificate). Covers pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib, Seaborn, Plotly and scikit-learn: regression, trees, random forests, SVM, k-NN, K-Means, PCA, intro NLP and deep learning with Keras and TensorFlow.
  • Machine Learning Specialisation, DeepLearning.AI, Andrew Ng (certificate). Covers supervised learning, advanced learning algorithms, unsupervised learning, anomaly detection, recommenders and introductory reinforcement learning. Module certificates: supervised learning, advanced algorithms, unsupervised learning.

SQL and databases

  • The Complete SQL Bootcamp: PostgreSQL & pgAdmin (certificate). Covers querying, aggregation, joins, schema fundamentals and pgAdmin tooling.
  • SQL for Data Analysis: Advanced SQL Querying Techniques (certificate). Covers subqueries, CTEs, window functions, NULL-safe handling and reusable views.

AI engineering

  • AI Engineer Core Track: LLM Engineering, RAG, QLoRA, Agents (certificate). Covers frontier APIs, open-source models, RAG, frontier and QLoRA fine-tuning, and agent deployment with LangChain and Gradio.
  • ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers (certificate). Covers structured prompting, iterative refinement and the OpenAI API.
  • Agentic AI, Andrew Ng (certificate). Covers task decomposition, reflection, tool calling and multi-agent coordination.
  • AI Agents in LangGraph (certificate). Covers graph-structured agent workflows, state, tracing and human-in-the-loop checkpoints.
  • Evaluating AI Agents, DeepLearning.AI (Arize AI) (certificate). Covers agent decomposition, tracing with Arize Phoenix, router, skill and trajectory evaluations, judge design and production monitoring.
  • Building and Evaluating Advanced RAG, DeepLearning.AI (LlamaIndex, TruEra) (certificate). Covers the RAG triad with TruLens, sentence-window and auto-merging retrieval, and evaluation-driven iteration.
  • Knowledge Graphs for RAG, DeepLearning.AI (Neo4j) (certificate). Covers Cypher, vector search over graph data and graph-backed question answering.
  • Agentic Knowledge Graph Construction, DeepLearning.AI (Neo4j) (certificate). Covers multi-agent schema inference and knowledge graph construction with Google’s Agent Development Kit.
  • Claude Code: A Highly Agentic Coding Assistant, Anthropic (certificate). Covers agentic coding workflows, context discipline, subagents, git worktrees, hooks and MCP servers.
  • Agent Skills with Anthropic (certificate). Covers skill design and packaging, progressive disclosure, and skills with the Claude API and the Claude Agent SDK.
  • MCP: Build Rich-Context AI Apps with Anthropic (certificate). Covers MCP servers and clients with FastMCP, reference servers and remote deployment.

Version control

  • The Git & GitHub Bootcamp (certificate). Covers branching, merging, rebasing, recovery workflows and GitHub collaboration.

Cloud

  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, CLF-C02 (certificate). Covers core AWS services, IAM, networking, monitoring and cost governance at a conceptual level.

Grants and awards

Grants

Awards