Rate My Professor Aubrey Miller

Aubrey Miller serves as Senior Professional Practice Fellow in geospatial science within the School of Surveying at the University of Otago, part of the Division of Sciences. He earned his MSc from Colorado State University in the USA and BA (Hons) from The College of William and Mary, also in the USA. His academic and research pursuits center on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and geospatial analysis, with particular emphasis on natural hazards in alpine environments, including snow avalanches. Additional interests include outdoor recreation, remote sensing, photogrammetry and lidar technologies, terrain analysis and modelling, bathymetric analysis, spatial ecology, geovisualisation, and volunteered geographic information or participatory GIS. Miller is currently pursuing a PhD focused on snow avalanche hazards in Aotearoa New Zealand, contributing to the Mountain Research Centre's efforts in this area.

In his role, Miller manages the spatial computer laboratory and offers research support to students and staff. He plays a significant role in teaching and course coordination, contributing to papers such as SURV 120 (Surveying and Spatial Science), SURV 220 (Introduction to Geographic Information Science), SURV 309/SURV 509 (Introduction to Remote Sensing), and SURV 319/SURV 519 (Spatial Algorithms and Programming). He coordinates SURV 320/SURV 520 (Spatial Analysis and Visualisation) and participates in MARI 322 (Coastal and Shelf Seas Oceanography), MARI 401 (Advanced Methods in Marine Science), and ECOL 111 (Ecology and Conservation Diversity). Additionally, he leads annual GIS software short-courses, including Introduction to ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Pro, and QGIS for university staff and postgraduates. His scholarly output includes notable publications such as "Landscape Changes in the Kitchener Avalanche Path, Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park After the Record-Breaking July 2022 Storm" (Sheppard et al., 2026, New Zealand Journal of Geology & Geophysics), "Detecting snow avalanche activity using infrasound: Hooker Valley, New Zealand" (Watson et al., 2026), "Unprecedented Winter Rainfall Initiates Large Snow Avalanche and Mass Movement Cycle in New Zealand's Southern Alps/Kā Tiritiri o te Moana" (Miller et al., 2023, Geophysical Research Letters), "Public Access Dimensions of Landscape Changes in Parks and Reserves: Case Studies of Erosion Impacts and Responses in a Changing Climate" (Orchard et al., 2026), and works on wildfire danger indices and recreation zoning. His research has garnered over 240 citations on Google Scholar.