Dr Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz

Dr Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz is currently 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 first rate ship of the line to her appearance in 1805 using archaeology specific UAS robotic data, High-Resolution Laser Scan datasets and traditional shipbuilding techniques.

He 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. In 2019 he led the discovery of one of the best-preserved 16th Century shipwreck (Okänt Skepp) in the world and in 2020 a hundred year old lost German WWI U-boat (UC-47) offshore of the UK.

Rodrigo has experience working in maritime archaeology for more than 15 years. He is a specialist in deep sea archaeology and underwater digital archaeological recording and the use of state-of-the-art robotics in this field. His main interest lies on the development of novel ways of exploring and recording our maritime cultural heritage.

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 as well as an 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.