Benjamin Ducke studied archaeology and computer sciences at Berlin’s Freie Universität, where he graduated with a master’s thesis on “GIS-based sediment transport and predictive models for heritage management” in 2003.

Following a one-year PhD grant (by the German Gerda Henkel Stiftung) at University College London, he worked as a lecturer in computational archaeology at Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel (Germany), where he also received his PhD degree in natural sciences for his thesis on “spatio-temporal analysis of archaeological data”.

Currently, Benjamin Ducke is an independent researcher, software developer and consultant in the field of GIS-based data analysis for multiple fields of research and application, including digital site recording, image-based 3D reconstruction (http://www.archaeocopter.de) and geophysical data analysis. He is the lead developer of the free and open source desktop GIS “gvSIG CE” (http://www.gvsigce.org).

His professional experience to date includes development and research of IT solutions for Oxford Archaeology and the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), several land-use related missions to Kosovo for the European Commission, lecturerships in spatial crime statistics, work for the alternative energies sector and, of course, archaeological excavations and survey projects around the globe.