Dr. ir. Rudy Helmons started his professional career as a research engineer for soil-tool-water interactions at IHC MTI, the research department of Royal IHC, while simultaneously pursuing a PhD at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. In 2017, he defended his PhD research ‘cum laude’ on the topic of rock excavation in under water conditions, with applications in deep-sea mining, drilling and dredging. As of 2017, Rudy moved to the research group of Offshore and Dredging Engineering at TU Delft. As an associate professor in offshore and dredging engineering, he is responsible for education and research related to subsea engineering and deep-sea mining. Rudy was appointed for several years as Adjunct Associate Professor for deep sea mining at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. With a solid background in mechanical engineering and fluid mechanics, he has been most active in fundamental and applied research for the dredging and offshore mining industry, mostly at the interface of the equipment, water and seabed, covering topics like excavation, transport and deposition of the ore and sediments.