Dr Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz

Rodrigo is MMT’s Underwater Photogrammetry Specialist and resident Maritime Archaeologist. Since joining MMT in late 2018, he has collaborated on the creation and development of MMT’s new underwater photogrammetry department, where he is in charge of training and development. He brings expertise as a result of more than 10 years of underwater exploration, mapping and excavation, which he acquired as a member of the Centre for Underwater Archaeology and the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton. It is his most recent work in the Bulgarian Black Sea that sees his role as a key member of the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (Black Sea MAP), where he was leading expert in underwater three-dimensional recording mapping using ROVs. More than 65 wrecks were surveyed in a period of two months, ranging from shipwrecks lost in Ancient Greece and Rome to the Medieval period and the Ottoman Empire. Most of them are located below 2000m. His experience in this field has been extensive and varied, participating in a number of commercial and research international projects in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Ocean, the Baltic, the English Channel, the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea, as well as inland water sites in the British Isles and Mexico. Rodrigo is a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton, and an Associate Fellow at the Maritime Archaeology Research Institute (MARIS) at the University of Sodertorn, Sweden. He is also a collaborator at the Institute of Anthropologic Studies from the UNAM in Mexico. Rodrigo is a Nautical Archaeology Society tutor, as well as a HSE Air Commercial Diver.