Rate My Professor Mick Filmer

Dr. Mick Filmer is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences within the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Curtin University, Perth, Australia. He holds a PhD from Curtin University and a Bachelor of Geoinformatics and Surveying (First Class Honours) from the University of South Australia. As a licensed surveyor, Filmer specializes in geodesy and remote sensing. He is a key member of the Western Australian Geodesy Group and serves as Curtin University's academic representative on the AusSeabed governance board. Filmer teaches courses in spatial sciences, including cadastral surveying, and supervises higher degree by research students, including those funded by CSIRO Industry PhD scholarships in areas such as mining and earth observation. His career includes contributions to Curtin's Institute for Geoscience Research (TIGeR) and active involvement in professional organizations.

Filmer's research interests center on geodesy, vertical datum unification, mean dynamic topography, and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) for monitoring vertical land motion. Notable research includes studies on subsidence in the Perth metropolitan region and evaluations of ocean models against tide gauge data for vertical datum purposes. Key publications include 'The AUSGeoid09 model of the Australian Height Datum' (Featherstone et al., 2011), 'The north-south tilt in the Australian Height Datum is explained by the ocean’s mean dynamic topography' (Featherstone and Filmer, 2012), 'Comparison between geodetic and oceanographic approaches to estimate mean dynamic topography for vertical datum unification: evaluation at Australian tide gauges' (Filmer et al., 2018), and works on high-resolution InSAR deformation models and quasigeoid computations. He co-chairs the FIG Commission 4 on Hydrography for 2023–2026 and has presented at international conferences such as IEEE IGARSS on InSAR applications for Australian coastal cities. Filmer's contributions advance national and international efforts in spatial sciences and hydrography.