Robert G. V. Baker

B Sc (Hons) Dip Ed (Syd); MSc, PhD (UNSW)

School of Human and Environmental Studies

University of New England 

Armidale NSW 2351

Email : rbaker1@une.edu.au

Ph. 61 2 (0) 267 73 2884  

Fax. 0015 2 (0)67 73 3030

Publications

Interests 

Affiliations 

My expertise is to develop cross-disciplinary applied mathematical modelling ideas and techniques. I returned to physical geography research in 1997 as well as continue in my other research interests.  I therefore have two publication streams at present in applied human interaction modelling and Quaternary Science.

Since my first academic appointment in July 1993 at UNE, I have published papers in international journals as a post-graduate student at UNSW (starting in 1981) and now my record stands at over forty refereed journal articles and book chapters. This record was recognised by being elected as Vice-Chair of the International Geographical Union’s Commission on Modelling Geographical Systems in 1996 and Chair in 2005.  I have been appointed to the editorial boards of two international journals since 1998: Papers in Regional Science and Journal of Geographical Systems.

I was the holder of a Large Australian Research Council Grant (1997/98) entitled, “An assessment of the deregulation of trading hours on consumer behaviour.” and an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (2003) entitled “The Geography of the Internet”.

I am prominent retail academic in the wider community in the fields of trading hour assignments and retail land use developments. I have been an expert witness in the Sunday Trading Inquiry for south east Queensland and the Woolworths’ Tamworth appeal in NSW in 1998 and in Queensland in 2005. Previously, I was a consultant for two Chambers of Commerce in their wins against Woolworths’ Marketplace developments at Claredon and Fivedock, Sydney. My study at Claredon, published in the Australian Planner, was used extensively in the Draft Retail Policy (1996) p.11, issued by the NSW Department of Urban Affairs and Planning. I was engaged in the drafting of a Regional and Rural Retail Policy for Planning NSW in 2005.

In Quaternary Science, I have led a UNE team on developing the fixed biological indicator (FBI) methodology (for time-elevation and d¹⁸ 0 data). I have been the leader in a series of publications in international journals on these topics (see reference list). The FBI method provides opportunities to test environmental and geological hypotheses over the past 6,000 years. My ideas on relative sea level heights and relative measurements of oxygen isotopes in samples, cross-correlated with the inter-tidal species and their habitats, are my major contributions to the field. I am currently researching a solar emission model and how the Sun affects the Earths climate, particularly rainfall patterns.

I received recognition for my contributions to retail modelling and Quaternary Science through the UNE Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research in 2001.