Employment:

2008 - present:
Associate, then full Professor, Exploration Seismology, Dept. of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

2005 - 2008:
Lecturer, then Reader of Exploration Seismology, School of Earth and Environment, Earth Sciences, Univ. of Leeds, UK.

2000 - 2005:
Postdoctoral, then Senior Research Fellow, School of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds, UK.

Education:

2007:
Habilitation (HDR), Institute of Physics of the Globe, University Denis Diderot (Paris 7), Paris, France.

1996 - 1999:
Ph.D. in Geophysics with honours, Laboratoire de Geophysique Interne et Tectonophysique, University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France.

1991 - 1996:
BSc and MSc in Geophysics, Faculty of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

External Service:

2016-2018:
Member, NSERC Evaluation Panel, Strategic Partnership Grants (Projects), Energy and Natural Resources.

2007-2016:
Member Editorial Board, Geophysics, Associate Editor, Anisotropy

2009-present:
Member Research Committee, Society of Exploration Geophysicists

Awards and Honors:

• 2022 Innovation Awards Recipient, University of Alberta, category: "U of A Spin-off Companies" to Mirko van der Baan and Zhenhua Li. (link)
• 2019 NSERC Synergy Award for Innovation, category: "Two or More Companies" to David Eaton, Mirko van der Baan and the Microseismic Industry Consortium. (link)
• Honorary Lecturer (2017), North America, Society of Exploration Geophysicists: How widespread is human-induced seismicity in the USA and Canada? (link) (live recording)
• 2017 David Elliott prize for best journal paper by the Canadian Tectonics Group division of the Geological Association of Canada for Van der Baan M., Eaton D.W. and Preisig G. (2016) Stick-split mechanism for anthropogenic fluid-induced tensile rock failure. Geology, 44(7), 503-506.(link)
• Top 30 presentation, SEG, Denver, 2010: Local similarity with the envelope as a seismic phase detector by Fomel and Van der Baan.
• Top 25 presentation, SEG, Houston, 2005: An alternative strategy for isotropic P-wave AVO by Van der Baan and Smit.

Student and Postdoc Awards:

• Best Oral Presentation, Honorable Mention, Geoconvention 2025, Calgary, to Wardah Fadil for Improved microseismic event detection and classification based on time-frequency analysis with CATS: A case study of the Quest CO2 storage facility, Alberta by Fadil, Grubas and Van der Baan.
• Best Student Oral Presentation, Honorable Mention, Geoconvention 2025, Calgary, to Serafim Grubas for Three-component denoising of earthquake signals with CATS-3C by Grubas and Van der Baan.
• Best Student Oral Presentation, Geoconvention 2025, Calgary, to Raisha Pradisti for Hindcast simulations of M > 4 events and anticipated ground shaking for induced seismicity in Montney, British Columbia by Pradisti and Van der Baan.
• Best Oral Paper in Site Characterization and Subsurface Monitoring, CCUS 2025, Houston, to Wardah Fadil for Improved Microseismic Monitoring at the Quest CO2 Storage Facility with Cluster Analysis of Trimmed Spectrograms (CATS) by Fadil, Grubas and Van der Baan.
• Best Oral Presentation, Honorable Mention, Geoconvention 2024, Calgary, to Wardah Fadil for Improved microseismic event detection with CATS: A case study of the QUEST CO2 storage facility, Alberta by Fadil, Grubas and Van der Baan.
• Best Student Oral Presentation, Honorable Mention, Geoconvention 2024, Calgary, to Serafim Grubas for Denoising of earthquake signals with CATS by Grubas and Van der Baan.
• Best Student Oral Presentation (out of over 350 total presentations), Geoconvention 2022, Calgary, to Ana Ortega Perez for Hydraulic fracture monitoring: Integrated analysis of DAS, pumping information, and microseismicity by Ortega Perez and Van der Baan.
• Top 25 presentation (out of 709 papers), IMAGE 2021 (virtual), to Jorge Nustes Andrade for Automatic fracture hit detection in low-frequency distributed acoustic sensing using a computer vision workflow by Nustes Andrade and Van der Baan.
• Best Student Paper and Top 25 presentation (out of 1238 submissions and 764 papers), SEG 2020, Denver and virtual, to Hanh Bui for Event detection using a fast matched filter algorithm - An efficient way to deal with big microseismic datasets by Bui and Van der Baan.
• Best Student Oral Presentation, Geoconvention 2019, Calgary, to Jordan Phillips for Understanding public risk perception in the oil and gas industry by Jordan Phillips, Mirko Van der Baan, Sven Anders and Scott McKean.
• Student Presentation award, Annual Meeting, Seismological Society of America, Miami, 2018, to Mauricio Reyes Canales for Monte Carlo Simulations for Analysis and Prediction of Non-Stationary Magnitude-Frequency Distributions in Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis by Reyes Canales and Van der Baan.
• Best Student Poster Presentation: Honourable Mention, Geoconvention, 2016, to Colin Brisco for A review of seismic velocity response to variations in pore pressure, pore-saturating fluid and confining stress by Colin Brisco and Mirko Van der Baan.
• Best Student Poster, Geoconvention, 2014, to Yoones Vaezi for Interferometric assessment of clamping quality of borehole geophones by Yoones Vaezi and Van der Baan. Yoones Vaezi also won a Honorable Mention for Best Geophysical Presentation for work done during his internship at CGG with Dr De Meersman, a former PhD student.
• Top 30 presentation, SEG, Las Vegas, 2012, to Jiajun Han for Complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition for seismic time frequency analysis by Jiajun Han and Van der Baan.
• Top 30 presentation, SEG, Denver, 2010, to Thomas Blanchard for Separating pressure and saturation changes using attenuation measurements from time-lapse prestack seismic data by Thomas Blanchard, Roger Clark and Van der Baan.