EDUCATION
Dragomir Garbov was born in Burgas in 1983. He graduated the “Goethe” German Language High-School in his home town (2002) and went on to study Classical Archaeology, Ancient History and Historical Geography at the Rhenish Frederick-Williams University in Bonn Germany (2002-2005). He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in History with Honours in Archaeology (2008), a Master’s degree (2010) and PhD (2016) at the Department of Archaeology of the New Bulgarian University (NBU) in Sofia, Bulgaria. He specialised at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece (2011) and the International Centre for Underwater Archaeology under the auspices of UNESCO in Zadar, Croatia (2013).
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Between 2013 to 2016 Dragomir Garbov was employed as a maritime archaeologist at the Centre for Underwater Archaeology (CUA). From 2016 to 2020 he worked as a heritage consultant in Sydney, Australia. From 2020 to 2022 he was a senior maritime archaeologist at the New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet in Sydney and since 2022 has been a senior subject matter expert in underwater cultural heritage with the Australian Federal Government in Canberra. Dragomir Garbov has been a CUA associate since 2017 and an adjunct professor at the Department of Archaeology at the NBU since 2020.
PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS AND EXPERIENCE
Dr Garbov has authored over 30 publications. His academic interests are focused on the archaeology and history of seafaring along the present-day Bulgarian coast from Antiquity to the Modern Age. A key topic of his research is the globalisation of maritime culture in the Golden Age of Sail as reflected in the archaeology of shipwrecks in the Western Black Sea.
Dr Garbov has directed and participated in numerous archaeological investigations in the Black Sea and beyond. He was the principal investigator of the Saint Nicholas Bay Shipwreck near Chernomorets (2015) and is the permit holder of the Urdoviza shipwreck expedition, near Kiten since 2022. He participated in the Barangaroo boat excavation in Sydney (2018). Between 2015 and 2018 he was a secondary permit holder of the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project, where he is responsible for the research and publication of a series of nearly intact deep-water shipwrecks from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Dr Dragomir Garbov is an expert in underwater cultural heritage management in accordance with the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. He provided input in the ICOMOS-IPHC Antarctic Underwater Material Culture Guidelines (2021), authored the Australian Federal guidelines on the application of the Commonwealth Underwater Cultural Heritage Act (2024) and the Guidelines on the Protection and Management of Shipwrecks in Australian Waters (2025), he has authored and co-authored a number of management plans for internationally significant underwater archaeological sites, including the frigate HMS Pandora (1791) on the Great Barrier Reef, and the WWI submarines AE1 (1914) in Papua New Guinea, and AE2 (1915) in Türkiye.
Dr Garbov has obtained a series of diving certifications (including as a surface air supply commercial diver), and relies on over 500 hours of archaeological experience underwater in Europe and Australasia. He has held public lectures at NBU (Bulgaria), Syndey University (Australia), University of New England (Australia) and Stanford University (USA). He is a voting member representing Bulgaria at the ICOMOS International Committee on the Underwater Cultural Heritage, and a member of the Australasian Institute of Maritime Archaeology. In 2022 he was nominated and elected a lifetime corresponding member of the Archaeological Institute of America for high attainments in the field of archaeology.