diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index aceebc1e..4a88d02f 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -200,6 +200,10 @@ wandb/
 # Logs
 logs/
 
+# Models
+rf3_latest.pt
+rf3_921.pt
+
 # Other
 *.sif
 *.out
diff --git a/src/modelhub/inference_engines/rf3.py b/src/modelhub/inference_engines/rf3.py
index 28cf344c..bfd93a56 100644
--- a/src/modelhub/inference_engines/rf3.py
+++ b/src/modelhub/inference_engines/rf3.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import logging
+import os
 from os import PathLike
 from pathlib import Path
 
@@ -133,7 +134,19 @@ def __init__(
 
         # Load the training config from the checkpoint
         # TODO: Load checkpoint only once (instead of twice)
-        ranked_logger.info(f"Loading checkpoint from {Path(ckpt_path).resolve()}...")
+        try:
+            resolved_ckpt_path = Path(ckpt_path).resolve(strict=True)
+        except OSError:
+            # If path does not exist as-is, attempt to load from the project directory
+            proj_ckpt_path = os.path.join( os.environ.get("PROJECT_PATH", os.environ["PROJECT_ROOT"]), ckpt_path )
+            try:
+                resolved_ckpt_path = Path(proj_ckpt_path).resolve(strict=True)
+                ckpt_path = proj_ckpt_path # Successful
+            except OSError:
+                resolved_ckpt_path = Path(ckpt_path).resolve(strict=False)
+                pass # Just keep the current ckpt_path
+
+        ranked_logger.info(f"Loading checkpoint from {resolved_ckpt_path}...")
         checkpoint = torch.load(
             ckpt_path, "cpu", weights_only=False
         )  # We only extract the `train_cfg` from the checkpoint initially