Lieven Verdonck

Lieven Verdonck is a researcher in the Department of Archaeology at Ghent University, specializing in archaeological geophysics with a focus on ground-penetrating radar applications. He is affiliated with the ARCHAEO research group and the Ghent Centre for Late Antiquity (GCLA), conducting research primarily in Roman archaeology, Late Antiquity, and Protohistory across Belgium, Southern Europe, and Western Europe.

Verdonck earned his licentiate in archaeology from Ghent University in 2002, with a dissertation on Roman rural occupation in the Regione Marche, Italy. He specialized in archaeological geophysics at the University of Bradford (UK), receiving his MPhil in 2008. He completed his PhD at Ghent University in 2012 on GPR prospection applied to archaeology, focusing on ultra-dense sampling strategies and multi-antenna GPR-array development.

His research centers on archaeological interpretation of geophysical data, including machine learning and computer vision applications for large datasets. He has conducted geophysical prospections across Belgium (Aalter, Middelburg, Koekelare, Vinkem) and the Mediterranean (Italy, Corsica, Greece, Malta, Portugal). His current work focuses on automating geophysical data acquisition through autonomous measurement platforms towed by self-driving ATVs. His publications demonstrate evolution from basic GPR applications to sophisticated multi-antenna systems and advanced computational techniques for archaeological interpretation.

Verdonck's work on the 'Beneath the surface of Roman Republican cities' project, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, involved comprehensive GPR surveys of two complete Roman cities in Central Italy. The results have been deposited as an open-access archive with the Archaeology Data Service, reflecting his commitment to data sharing and transparency in archaeological research.

He is actively involved in multiple research projects including the Falerii Novi project (2015-2027), Visualizing Roman cityscapes (2021-2024), and the Urban survey of abandoned Roman towns in Italy (2004-2024), demonstrating sustained scholarly contribution to advancing archaeological methodology through geophysical techniques.