His honours thesis at the University of Tasmania was about glaciation in Western Tasmania.[2] His subsequent 1985 Phd thesis was concerned with glaciation in Central Tasmania.[3]
In the 1980s he was involved in researching indigenous sites in caves in the South West of Tasmania, including Kutikina Cave[4][5][6][7]
He was involved in various overviews of karst - cave environments of Tasmania, and other states of Australia.[8][9][10]
He was an academic geomorphologist at the University of Tasmania.[11]
He has written and co-authored about conservation of glacial landforms.[12]
^Kiernan, Kevin (June 2018), Eroding the edges of nature : Mount Field and the Florentine Valley : Tasmania's first national park and a century of lessons, Fullers Publishing (published 2018), ISBN978-0-648-21802-9
^Hamilton-Smith, Elery; Kiernan, Kevin; Spate, Andy; Western Australia. Department of Environmental Protection; Hamilton-Smith, Elery; Western Australia (1998), Karst management considerations for the Cape Range Karst province Western Australia : a report prepared for the Western Australia Department of Environmental Protection, The Dept, ISBN978-0-7309-8064-3