Ricardo Rocha has a BSc in Biology by the University of Lisbon and MSc in Conservation Science by Imperial College London with thesis dedicated to Sao Tome endemic birds' response to agricultural intensification. Following his MSc, he worked on the ecology of seabirds and endemic reptiles of the Selvagens archipelago (Portugal) and then moved to the Metapopulation Research Centre (Finland) to investigate the efficiency of Malagasy protected areas in reducing deforestation.
He has since worked with bird and bat ecology in Madagascar, Kenya and Brazil. His PhD, based at the Universities of Lisbon and Helsinki and supervised by Christoph Meyer, Jorge Palmeirim and Mar Cabeza, addresses the effects tropical forest fragmentation on the spatiotemporal dynamics of phyllostomid bat communities. He has recently moved to the University of Madeira where he lectures biosystematics and zoology.