Filipe Castro is a researcher at Instituto de Arqueologia e Paleociências, at História, Territórios e Comunidades, which is part of the Center for Functional Ecology, University of Coimbra, Portugal. He has a civil engineering degree from the Technical University of Lisbon (1984), a post-graduation in recuperation of old buildings and monuments from Lisbon Fine Arts School (1986), an MBA from the Catholic University of Lisbon (1994), and PhD in Anthropology from Texas A&M University (2001). He worked as a civil engineer until the early 1990s, when he moved into management, working for the Portuguese government.

In 1995 he became manager at Centro Nacional de Arqueologia Náutica e Subaquática (CNANS), the Portuguese state agency for maritime archaeology, and in 2001 he started his teaching career at Texas A&M University as an invited teacher. From 2002 to 2021 he was the Frederick R. Mayer II Professor of Anthropology at Texas A&M University and the Director of the J. Richard Steffy Ship Reconstructing Laboratory.

His main research interests cluster around early modern European seafaring and history of shipbuilding. He has conducted fieldwork in Brazil, Panama, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, and the United Arab Emirates.