Roderick graduated from University of Applied Sciences Leiden in 2021 with a BSc in biology, specializing in microbiology. He was first introduced to marine ecology through a research minor, through which he tracked the phylogenetics of the extinct Great Auk around the northern Atlantic. Bakker came to Bermuda for the first time in 2021 to conduct research for his bachelor thesis, which looked into the seasonal variation in metabolic activity of common Bermuda reef-building corals. After graduating, he returned to Bermuda in 2022 to work as a research technician at BIOS on the Eddy Reef project, looking into the contemporary and historic effects of mesoscale eddies on coral metabolism using a prototype in-situ set of autonomous incubation chambers. His daily responsibilities include laboratory work (measuring coral growth rates), maintaining instruments, deploying instruments off small boats, tracking mesoscale eddies, and data analysis.