Rodrigo's research is centered on the conservation of biological and cultural heritage.

Responsible for introducing the concept of indigenous knowledge networks, he brings the human dimension into studies of ecosystem services that traditionally focused on the ecological component. Policy-relevant, his research with the provincial government of West Papua has helped identify regional-scale priorities for expanding protected areas and safeguarding biocultural heritage in the face of climate change. Firmly rooted in natural history, he has spent 30 months doing collaborative fieldwork with 28 indigenous groups in South America and New Guinea, organized capacity-building workshops across the tropics, and led a team of 99 scientists from 56 institutions to build the first expert-verified checklist of the world's richest island flora. Author of 46 papers, his work is regularly published in top scientific journals including Nature, Science and PNAS.

Rodrigo's research has been funded by: