Rate My Professor Hugh Finn

Dr. Hugh Finn is a Lecturer in the Curtin Law School at Curtin University. He lectures in Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and Environmental Law and Policy. Finn completed his PhD in Biological Sciences at Murdoch University in 2005. His prior experience includes working as a wildlife biologist conducting field research with marine mammals and black cockatoos. From 2007 to 2014, he served as a Researcher at Murdoch University. Between 2014 and 2016, he was an Associate at the Supreme Court of Western Australia. Since 2017, he has held the position of Lecturer at Curtin Law School. Additionally, Finn has contributed to initiatives such as the Pathways to Net Zero Precincts project as Technical Lead for Certification and was chairperson of the Environmental Defender’s Office of Western Australia in 2019 and 2020.

Finn's research specializations encompass environmental law and policy, animal welfare law, legal and policy frameworks for climate change and wildlife conservation, and regulatory mechanisms for human activities impacting wild animals, including land clearing and bycatch of marine mammals in commercial fisheries. His key publications include 'A stochastic model for estimating sustainable limits to wildlife removals' (Conservation Biology, 2022, with O. Manlik et al.); 'The defamatory potential of ad hominem criticism: guidance for advocacy in public forums' (2018); 'The invisible harm: land clearing is an issue of animal welfare' (Wildlife Research, 2017, with N. Stephens); 'Successional changes in feeding activity by threatened cockatoos in revegetated mine sites' (2016); 'Reduced Detection of Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) in an Inner Harbour Channel During Pile Driving Activities' (2015); 'Landscape position predicts distribution of eucalypt feed trees for threatened black-cockatoos in the northern jarrah forest, Western Australia' (2011); and contributions to journals such as Frontiers in Marine Science and Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. Finn has participated in public discussions on environmental policy and climate action.