Honorary Professor Thomas Baumgartl's research interests focused on mine closure and exploring site-specific solutions for the construction of safe, stable, sustainable, and non-polluting landforms.

In his research, Thomas investigated soil hydrological and soil mechanical processes and their effect on the environmental performance of rebuilt landforms including constructed covers over waste rock or tailings storage facilities. This included designing and setting up test sites and monitoring critical water balance parameters like deep drainage, runoff, evaporation and water storage (plant growth). Data interpretation and numerical modelling under various climatic conditions were applied for the assessment of the performance for the purpose of mine closure. 

Cross-discipline, Thomas collaborated in studies on geochemical properties and ageing behaviour of substrates like land covers from soil, waste rock, tailings, for the purpose of predicting their hydrological and geochemical evolution and the future trajectory of response within their environment and informing about their level of risk to successful mine closure.

Thomas has a degree in Geo-ecology from the University of Bayreuth, Germany with a specialisation in soil physics and soil hydrology. He holds a PhD from the University of Bayreuth, Germany and a Venia Legendi at the University of Kiel, Germany.

Thomas is a Fellow of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation. He is a member of the Australian, German and International Soil Science Societies, of AusIMM. Thomas has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers in international journals; he is an associate editor and member of editorial boards of international journals. 

He has been the organiser and presenter of workshops to industry and government on mine rehabilitation and mine closure in Australia and overseas and organiser of symposia at international conferences related to mine rehabilitation and land restoration of degraded land. Thomas is a Certified Professional Soil Scientist of Soil Science Australia Inc.