Dr Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz
Visiting Fellow
Dr Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz is a Visiting Fellow in Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton and Co-Director of the Offshore Archaeological Research Progamme (OAR) of the Centre for Maritime Archaeology a collaboration project between academic research and the offshore industry. The programme discovered in 2019 one of the best-preserved 16th Century shipwrecks (Okänt Skepp) in the world in Baltic waters and in 2020 a lost WWI U-boat (UC-47) offshore of the UK.
Rodrigo is a specialist in deep sea archaeology and underwater digital archaeological recording and the use of state-of-the-art robotics in archaeology. His main interest lies on the development of novel ways of exploring and recording our maritime cultural heritage. He was a member of the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project, where was in charge of the archaeological computing development and the digital documentation.
Currently, he is the Archaeological Data Manager for HMS Victory at The National Museum of The Royal Navy in Portsmouth UK, where he is in-charge of the archaeological documentation of HMS Victory's Conservation Management Plan and the Victory Archives. This is a long-term project with the aim of restoring the only surviving example of a ship of the line to her appearance in 1805 using archaeology specific UAS robotic data, High-Resolution Laser Scan datasets and traditional shipbuilding techniques.
Rodrigo has been working in archaeological research for more than 15 years, mainly on underwater exploration offshore and inshore. He is a member of the Centre for Maritime Archaeology (CMA) and National Oceanography Centre of the University of Southampton as well as co-investigator at the Mexico’s Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) Maritime Archaeology programme and Associate Fellow of the Maritime Archaeology Research Institute (MARIS) of Södertorn University, Sweden.
Rodrigo is an HSE Surface Supplied Commercial Diver a Civil Aviation Association Commercial drone pilot and a Nautical Archaeology Society tutor.