Ricardo Fernandes is a researcher at the universities of Kiel and Cambridge where he employs the methods from applied Physics to help answering the questions of Archaeology. He has been involved in several excavations around the world, from the Athenian Agora of Ancient Greece to some of the oldest prehistoric sites in South America located at the Atacama Desert.

Fernandes relies on methods from Nuclear Physics to date archaeological samples and to obtain insights into the mobility patterns and dietary habits of past humans. This, in turn, led him to develop research in other scientific fields, including Ecology, Physiology, and Forensics. Fernandes is a strong advocate of interdisciplinarity as a source of novel and exciting research opportunities. Similarly, he believes that the study of the human past is a source of inspiration when facing present and future challenges.