Manuel completed his BA in Archaeological Conservation at Artesis University College Antwerp (Belgium) with distinction in 2012, and obtained his MA in the same field with high distinction in 2013. His MA thesis focused on the efficient conservation of archaeological iron objects, looking at optimal gathering of information by means of various imaging and cleaning techniques including X-rays, μCT scans and selective cleaning.
In the following years, he worked on surveys, excavations, and conservation projects all over the Mediterranean, the Near East, and Northwest and Central Europe. He obtained his MSc in Archaeology with distinction in 2019 at Leiden University (the Netherlands), specialising in Digital Archaeology combined with Classical, Mediterranean and Near Eastern Archaeology. His thesis applied Image-Based Modelling and GIS to assess the effect of geomorphological change, topography, and ground visibility on survey data and early Roman colonial settlement patterns in Italy.
Manuel carries out his PhD project “Innovative techniques for the assessment of the degradation state of metallic artefacts” in the framework of the Marie-Curie-ITN European Joint Doctorate in Archaeological and Cultural Heritage Materials Sciences (ED-ARCHMAT). His main institutions are Politecnico di Torino (Italy) and Universidade de Évora (Portugal), with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) as a supporting institution. His research applies various analytical techniques to investigate the relationship between local soil conditions and archaeological metal corrosion, using material from a first century CE settlement on the edge of the Negev desert as a case study. While the analysis of archaeological material and soil samples is the foundation of this research, a significant part will consist of the validation of these processes by exposing reference copper alloys to the various soils from the site and analysing the corrosion products in a comparable manner.